February, 1992 - Volume 9 No 2
$3.50
Sfgfffs^r
Registered by Australia Post Publication No. NBG 66
Receoinmended Retail Price
iV 'J
1 1]
OfflCIAt/y
Bird's-eye simultaneous action views (Gull -cam)
Full interactive game control
Teams editor / creator
Load & save games in progress
Variable fielding positions
Plus many more features
For your nearest retailer contact:
N.S.W.: Pactronlcs Pry Ltd, 98 Carnarvon St, Sikerwater. ph:(02)748 47—
Victoria: Pactronlcs Pry Ltd, 51-55 Johnston Street, Fltzroy. ph:(03)419 4644 tax.,. . .
Queensland: Pactronlcs Ply Ltd, 12 Stratton St, Newstead. ph:(07)854 1982 fax:(07)854 1453
South Australia: Stubbs Agency, Unit 11, 60-66 Richmond Rd. Keswick. ph:(08) 297 9033 fax:(08) 297 2913
Western Australia: Pactronlcs, Unit 3, 257 Bannister Rd Canningvale. ph:(09) 455 1889 fax:(09) 455 2762
Tasmania: ESP Marketing, 99 Charles St., Moonah. Tas. ph:(002)732 909 tax:(002)781 607
New Zealand: Pactronlcs, 55 Spencer Street, Andersons Bay, Dunedin. ph:(03) 477 1868
Contents
General
4 Ram Rumbles - news
38 Letters - More AMOS please! A3000 or A2000? I
I the C64?
Amiga
8 Notepad - New products - Ad Pro 2, TurboPrint Pro and lots more
12 Scram - A detailed look at the new SCRAM 500
16 Budget Digitising - Datel's Video Digitiser II -
20 Pelican Press - Desktop publishing that is easy, fun and cheap
22 Amiga Basic Proof Reader - A smart way of checking errors
28 Computer Care • Part 1 - Keeping your computer in top operating order
30 Andy's Attic - How to deal with STACK, Diskdoctor, Clocks, Hard Errors
43 PD Update - Some of the best demos available in Public Domain
46 Amos Column - Part 3 - Gadgets and sliders
50 Amiga Basic Graduation Part 4 ■ Random Disk Files 2
C64/128
56 GEOS Column - More about GeoPublish, Cockroach Graphics Utility
59 C64 Column - Letters and answers on memory, printers, programming
CDTV
63 CDTV News Reviews - Sing along with Karaoke
Entertainment
65
69
76
That's Entertainment - News, Competition, Hints & Tips, Letters,
Hall of Fame
Game Reviews - Starflight 2, Hard Nova, Necronom, Rules of Engagement,
The Adventures of Willy Beamish, No. 1 Compilation
Adventurers Realm - Hints & tips, Problems, Help, The Dungeon,
Review of Suspicious Cargo
THnxsi £toBOm«0flKUK
Advertiser's Index
©®SBffiMD®©H
™HK
ACL 29 Lazarus 47
Aliens 13 LeeJan 34
Amiga P/D Clr 66 Logico 23
(\jy
Ami Tech 51 MacroSoll 36,37
A Gareth Powell Publication
Brunswick 47,60 Megadisc 54
21 Dar ley Road
CB Products 66 Mega Micro 43
Commodore MVB 15
Randwlck NSW 2031
40. 41,61, IBC OzardPD 42
Published by: Saturday Magazine PTY. LTD.
Computa Magic 14 PCM Computer Design
Distributed by: NETWORK Distribution
Printed by: Ian Liddell PTY. LTD.
Computer Man 2 19
Computermate 21 PM Developments 35
Classified 42 Pactronics IFC.4
Editor: Andrew Farrell
Desktop Utilities 43 Parcom 21
Production: Brenda Powell
Electronic Arts OBC Pelham 4
Layout: Andrew Dunstall & Tina Golns
Express PD 66 Phoenix 45
Fonhol 19 Power Peripherals
G-Sott 8 3, 5, 7, 9
Subscriptions / Back Issues:
DarrienPerry(02)398 5111
GV GroupAVilcom 33 Prime Arlitax 57,58
Entertainment Editor: Phil Campbell
Hard Disk Cale Rapisoft 13
25,26,27 Rod Irving 42
Harris Hi-Tek 21 Shop 4 34
Advertising: Ken Longshaw
(02) 398 5111 or (02) 817 2509
Interlink 31, 70 Sigmacom 17, 49
Mobile 018 230 912
Kaotic Koncepts 11 Unilech 32
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WATCH FOR THE
1992 Amiga ANNUAL
COMING SOON!
ACAR1
Computer Man
The Amiga Supermarket
SPECIAL: Diskettes 3.5" DSDD Cheap $6.49
Amiga 2000 ........... S 975.00
Amiga 500 computer ........... $599.00
MEMORY EXPANSIONS
512K with switch and battery- $59.95
2Mb A500 Internal i/0 $120.00
2Mb A500 Internal populated .- ■ • $269.00
4MbA500 Internal i/0 $188.00
Accelerator card A500 $649.00
Flicker Fixer $369.00
Action Replay MK III 500/1000/2000 NOW IN
HARD DRIVES
GVP52Mb/QA500 Series II $949.00
GVPA2000 HC8/42Mb/Q $699.00
GVP A2000 HC8/42Mb/Q 80/105/170 CALL
■I NEW NEW NEW NEW
GVP/PC28616Mta Emu later for the A500 HD ..... GAIL
DCTV - PAL Digital Composite Television CALL
Digital Sound Studio « ■• ■ — .,..,*.,., $169,00
PRINTERS 9 PIN
Epson LX 400 $239.00
Panasonic KXP1180 $279.00
StarLCIO II $319.00
Star LC15 $549.00
Citizen Colour GSX 200 $399.00
Star NX Colour/LC10 Colour $369.00
Star LC 200 Colour $419 00
PRINTERS 24 PIN
Epson LQ-200 ???.??
Panasonic KXP1123 $449.00
Panasonic KXP1124 $479.00
Star LC 24pin New model coming soon $489.00
Star LC 24-15 $749.00
Citizen Colour GSX 140 $599.00
Star LC 24/200 Colour $649.00
Bubble Jet BJ 10 EX . . . $549.00
Free Cable this month
3.5in Internal Drive $130.00
3.5in External Drive" \ \ \\ \ \\ "•[ ] \ \ [ ] j j ['[ \ j " $119.00
NO ONE BEATS OUR DEALSI
Put us to the test.
SPECIALS FOR FEBRUARY.
FISH 1-610 99cents
AMOS 1-240 $1.50
17 BIT 1 - 1739 99 cents
General PD 99 cents
P.O. Box E265, Perth 6001
611 Beaufort Street, Mt Lawley, Perth, 6050 WA
09 328 9062 or 018 911 011
Editorial
Workbench 2.0 is finally ship-
ping, although the price caught a
few people by surprise. Buyers
have paid anything from $99 to
$149 - the correct amount being
the latter.
Good news is the new manuals
are indeed the same as the Amiga
3000 as mentioned a few issues back. This is a vast improve-
ment over earlier documentation. Workbench, the SHELL
and AREXX are all clearly discussed in a well illustrated,
three-ring binder. All machines will start shipping with the
new operating system before too long.
We all know Workbench 2.0 has been some time coming.
However, Commodore have had an up-hill battle to try and
sort out compatibility problems and during this time they have
made some impressive additions to the original version 2.0
specifications. Our tests indicate that the majority of produc-
tivity titles are now compatible with version 2.04.
Entertainment titles could be a different story.
This year is fast shaping up as a milestone for the Amiga.
Everyone is eagerly awaiting possiblenew machine announce-
ments and third party companies are continuing to release
sock removing hardware add-ons which provide amazing
graphics power. PAL versions of previously only NTSC
products are also starting to surface - such as DCTV.
This is a good indicator for the future, although I must say
the pricing leaves a bit to be desired. The same product in the
U.S. is about one third the price. The U.S. companies say the
PAL version required re-engineering - and no doubt it did -
but haven't they realised yet that the PAL Amiga market is
umpteen times larger than the NTSC one they're in now? I
think European products offer a lot more chance of bringing
high powered 24-bit displays down to an affordable level.
Local Amiga developer, Gary Rayner, is rumoured to be
working on a new 24-bit display device called the Opal -
several versions are planned which should make this technol-
ogy available to the mass market around the middle of this
year.
With all that's new expected this year, The World of
Commodore. Show at Sydney's Darling Harbour will be an
event not to be missed. Commodore have already booked the
venue, so the show looks set to go on. Overseas exhibitors
from last year's event have promised to return with larger
stands and more products. Hopefully we'll see more local
involvement too. Stay tuned for more information on events
and products at the show.
In this month's issue Daniel Rutter takes a close up look at
a new Australian expansion device for the Amiga 500 and
George Kimpton checks over the Datel Digitiser which has
finally become available downunder. It's good to see more
low-cost add ons for the A500 appearing.
Next month we will have a review of the latest Action
Replay cartridge and a write up on Final Copy, a new
wordprocessor with full outline font technology.
Until then...
Andrew Farrell
ACAR2
Introducing the
AMIGA 500 FITNESS PLAN
U
GVP's New Series II A500HD8+ Puts A2000 Computing
Power ami Punch
CRFAT VALLEY PRODUCTS INC.
iMPAr i
Products, inc. Amiga, A20.00'and A3000 are
1 Commodore-Amiga inc.
NIX is a registered liademaiK ol •'■
9
By now you know
that every Amiga 500 comes
with that special built-in program called
"Wait". Wait while your A500 /^^
loads software. Wait while you^avc \J JJ
files. Wait while you change disks.
It doesn't have to be that way!
GVP's Series II A500HD8+
Takes Off the "WAIT
GVP's Series II A500HD8+ 40-105MB
Hard Drives work like the world's fastest
runners to take the "Wait" off and to get you
Amiga 500 racing along at data transfer speeds^M
of up to 52 times faster than floppy disk drives. I.
But getting rid of the "Wait" is just the beginning...
GVP's Series II A500HD8+ Turns
Floppy Fat into HARD DRMN' Muscle
Because the Series II A500HD8+ uses the same
custom VLSI and FA AASTBOM '" technologies of it's
powerful cousins - Series II A2000 SCSI + RAM -
you get more than an amazingly fast hard drive.
You get the storage space of 45 to 136 floppy
disks, depending upon the mode] you choose.
You also get Series ll's:
v" Exclusive Game (Hard Disk disable]
Switch for Full Games Compatibility
• A2000 DMA Data Transfer Speeds.
/ FAST RAM expansion with up
to 8MB of SIMM-Based Internal
RAM Expansion
\/ "Mini-Slot" Access to All A500 Expansioi
Bus Signals for future expansion.
v External SCSI Port for adding up to 7 SCSI Devices
</ Internal Fan for Cool, Reliable Operation
v External Mounting to Maintain Your Original
Commodore Factory Warranty
v' FREE Dedicated Universal Input Power
Supply. Insures full compliance with
Commodore's A500 power limitation.
• One-Year CVP Factory Warranty.
GVP's Series II A500HD8+ Keeps
Your Amiga 500's Sleek Good Looks
GVP knows that no fitness plan is complete unless
is keeps your system looking great. That's why
your Series II A500HD8 + matches your Amiga
500's good looks line-for-line, curve-for-curve.
So get a GVP Series II A500HD8+ hard drive for
your Amiga 500. Lose the "Wait" and Gain the Muscle.
UPDATE
It's finally here! The World
Series One Day Cricket Game
has now been released, and
should be in stock at your
nearest retailer. This game
really has got the lot!
Simultaneous split screen
scrolling, full complement of
international teams, overhead
perspective (gull cam), over
430 different bowls, full range
of batting strokes, variable
game length, variable fielding
layouts, coloured uniforms and
Teams Editor/Creator. These
are just some of the many
options available, but above all
else, there is action, fast,
smooth animated arcade
action, with all the strategy, all
the skill and all the razzamatazz
of the real thing.
Also available now is
Wordworth Version 1.1, THE
premier word processor for the
Amiga. New features added in
this version are Quick Type
mode, improved spell checking
operation, more adjustable
page layout control, Postscript
support, support for a vast
range of printers internal fonts,
outline font support and
improved graphic handling
abilities.
Registered owners of
previous versions of Wordworth
can upgrade to the latest
version. Please contact
Pactronics on (02) 748 4700 or
008 227 465 for details.
In Entertainment we are
pround to announce the release
of Elvira The Arcade Game on
Amigaand C64; BoardGames
inc. Monopoly, Risk, Scrabble
& Cluedoon Amiga & C64 disk
and tape, and we have a brand
new range of Budget titles
which would be in your stores
by the time you read this.
Padionio Ply Lid, 98 Camavon SI SBvawata, NSW (02) 748 4700
jfilPactronics
End of '91 Sales
As we all know, the Amiga came
underheavy attack from both endsof the
market place as 1991 came to a close.
Despite everything, it survived the on-
slaught with hearty sales throughout the
Christmas period.
The Amiga 500 fell to below the
magic $500 marie, only to rise back over
it in mid- January.
The A2000 has now parked itself at
under $ 1000, with the HD version under
$1500 with the new A2091 A drive con-
troller and a fast SCSI drive.
Great value for money for Amiga
heads, but still finding it tough to com-
pete with the PC for sheer work-horse
power, the Amiga looks set for some
tough competition in '92. It's still the
most fun around, but falling PC prices
could start to change that. Amigas sav-
ing grace will be the arrival of Woric-
bench 2.0 - now available in limited
quantities through Amiga dealers - and
the possible launch of new machines
some time this year. We can only hope.
Off in CDTV land, the number of
new titles looks set to explode, however
there was little discounting of the price
apart from dealers like Hard Disk Cafe.
Although the $1000 mark could be the
reason for some of the consumer resist-
ance to this new-fangled machine, no
doubt the plain lack of understanding as
to what it does could be having an
impact. Time will tell.
If you are going to buy a CDTV
player, make sure you go where they
hand out the free Groliers Encyclopae-
dia with the unit.
C64GS Flops Out
Unconfirmed rumours from the U.K.
indicate that the Commodore C64GS
ceased production.
This cartridge based C64 was Com-
modore's rather late attempt at getting a
leg in on the game console market.
Hoping to sell some 100,000 units in the
first year, the decision to stop trying to
throw this rather dated technology at the
slick 16-bit machines now selling in the
low end market was no doubt influenced
by the fact sales barely reached 15,000.
Media Spottings
Keep those Commodore and Amiga
spottings of machines we know and love
in the media rolling in. (Things have
been a bit quiet lately).
Andrew Gormly, a regular contribu-
tortotheMediaSpottingssection, posted
us another assortment of sightings, in-
cluding one in Neighbours. Andrew
admits to never watching the show,
however a friend who does saw one of
the Neighbours caslieeeiving an Amiga
500 Starter Pack for Christmas.
Another sighting was in the movie
My Stepmother is an Alien. In one scene
an astronomer has in his bedroom an old
C64 - the camera only gave us a glimpse
of the machine. Has this astronomer
seen Distant Suns on the Amiga? If not
he should, it's a wonderful program and
reason enough to upgrade.
In other sightings, Andrew Gormly
notes a mention of CDTV in the World
BookEnyclopedia's 1992 Science Year
Book, under the heading of Interactive
Multimedia. Thanks for the update
Andrew , and we look forward to hearing
about your European trip.
MEMORY EXPANSION
PRICES at January 18th
IMBxl -80ns DIP 6.80
4x256 -100ns DIP 6.80
- 80ns DIP 7.00
41256 -120ns DIP 1.90
-100ns DIP 2.10
1MBx4(44C1000) 80ns A3000 ZIP 30.00
1 MBx4 (44C1 002) 80ns col static 32.00
1MBx8 -100ns Simms(GVP) 52.00
x8 -100ns Simms 56.00
4Mbx8 -100ns Simms (GVP) 205.00
-80ns Slmms 210.00
4Mbx9 -80 Simms 225.00
All types of DRAM & memory modules in stock
Please phone for the latest prices. Sales tax 20%.
Overnight delivery, credit sards welcome.
1st Floor, 100 Yarrara Rd, Pennant Hills, 2120.
PO Box 382, Pennant Hills, 2120
pelham PTY LTD
Tel: (02) 980 8988 Fax:(02) 980 8991
#
1-AND DRIVE -ING HARD
TO STAY THAT WAY!
Only GVP Factory Installed
A2000 HC8+/52Q, 105Q or 200
SCSI Hard Disk + RAM Boards have a
track record this good— over 20,000
satisfied Amiga® users and now a
2-Year warranty!
Don't waste your valuable time or money
building a SCSI+RAM Controller from
parts . . .
Because of our unprecedented pricing
structure you can now get GVP's, brand
name, factory installed A2000 HC8+/52Q,
105Q or 200 at a very competitive price.
► GVP's A2000 HC8+/52Q, 105Q or 200
-THE SAFEST CHOICE
Look for the GVP Factory Installed Drive
Seal . . . it's your assurance that your A2000
HC8+/52Q, 105Q or 200 has been installed
and tested in GVP's own factory . . .
And the 2 year limited warranty protects
you better and longer than any third party
installed drive. And with third party drives
you run the risk of a run around if anything
does go wrong.
► GVP's A2000 HC8+/52Q, 105Q or 200
-NOW 33% FASTER WITH
FAAASTR0M™
All A2000 HC8+/52Q, 105Q or 200 have
been redesigned and equipped with GVP's
newest fastest SCSI Driver- F-MSTROM 4.0.
Plus, we've also doubled
Vfestem Digital's SCSI
Controller clockspeed to
14Mhz— for a tremendous,
33% increase in speed . . .
► GVP's A2000HC8+
/52Q, 105Q or 200
-JUST LOOK AT THESE FEATURES
• Custom chip design for the fastest
possible data transfer rates and DMA
performance -even in a multi-tasking
environment.
Easy-to-Install SIMM memory modules
for configurations up to 8MB— and
support BridgeBoard users with the 6MB
FAST RAM.
Support for virtually any SCSI device.
Fastest and easiest SCSI installation
possible.
►GVP's A2000 HC8+/52Q, 105Q or 200
-JUST LOOK FOR THE GVP FACTORY
INSTALLED SEAL
Remember if the GVP Factory Installed seal
shown in this ad isn't on your A2000
HC8+/52Q, 105Q or 200 box
. . . it isn't the fastest, most powerful, longest
warrantied, safest A2000 HC8+/52Q, 105Q
or 200 you can buy.
Ask for and accept only GVP A2000 HC8+
/52Q, I05Q or 200 with the Factory
Installed seal. For more information
call 215-337-8770.
Distributed I
Australia B
P W t R
NUMIlllS Pit 110
1st Floor, 257 Hawthorn Road, Caulfidd Notth, 3161
Phone: (03)532 8553 Fh: (03) 532 8556
Amiga is a registered ttadcmarti ol Commodore-Amiga. Inc.
Art Department
Professional 2.0
Version 2.0 has just arrived, com-
plete with changes made since the No-
vember Cologne computer show in Ger-
many. Upgrades for existing users will
be direct from ASDG, costing US$45
for ADP ro bought since September 1st
and US$90 for ADPro bought before
then, including shipping. Recommended
retail price of the new version is A$369.
The new release includes the ability
to output 24-bit colour to colour prefer-
ences printers and 8-bit grey-scale im-
ages to black and white preferences
printers. Jpeg image compression facil-
ity has been added, offering dramatic
compression for storage of graphics.
Several new file formats have been added
including Windows BMP and QRT ray-
tracing files. There's also support for
more display devices including IV24,
DCTV, HAM-E, Harlequin and new
AREXX commands.
For more information call Desktop
Utilities on (06) 239 6658.
CanDo1.51;CDUG
Version 1.51 of CanDo, with minor
modifications, will ship early this year.
Registered users of 1.5 are being up-
dated direct from the U.S. frecof charge.
The first newsletter for members of the
CanDo User Group will include selec-
tions from the Innovatronics tech sup-
port BBS message areas. The first of
Desktop Utilities, CanDo disks,
AustBBS 1, is also now available. Sev-
eral local developers are now working
with CanDo. For more information call
Desktop UUlities on (06) 239 6658.
The Sharp JX- 100 is soon to be avail-
able again in Australia. The JX-320 has
replaced the JX-300. Configuration for
the Amiga is being investigated at the
moment. The JX-320 is similar to the
JX-300 but does interpolation to simu-
late 600dpi in the image rendered to
screen and can interface to SCSI and
parallel if the host system permits. There
is no plan to use these on the Amiga at
the moment, partly because they are
both slower than GPIB, which is what
ASDG's Professional Scanlab uses.
The JX-700 has been superseded by
the JX-730, which is similar but has a
500K print buffer. It will be much more
attractive for colour graphics, now, with
Art Department Professional 2.0 's 24-
bit colour output modu le for preferences
printers.
CrossD
CrossDOS will provide for high den-
sity drives in its next version, enabling
Amiga users to read/write files in 1 .44mb
MSDOS format. Other formats avail-
able on the high density drives may
include 1.76mb AmigaDOS and 20mb
floptical. The release date for the new
version of CrossDOS will depend on
availability of relevant hardware for
testing. If this goes to plan, supplies
should be available in the first quarter of
1992.
For more information call Desktop
Utilities on (06) 239 6658.
MathsMaster 2.0
A new version of MatlisMaster is in
preparation. It will provide facilities for
tracking a high scores total and for mix-
ing operations in a series of questions, as
well as some new graphics and other
changes.
Registered users should back-up the
program disk and return the original to
Desktop Utilities, P.O. Box 3053,
Manuka ACT 2603, so they can receive
the new version as soon as it is available.
CD-ROM Package
New Horizons Software have an-
nounced alicensingagreementwith The
Station, an Austin, Texas based dealer,
to allow The Station to manufacture and
sell a CD-ROM package that includes
ProWrite 3.2, Flow 3.0, DesignWorks
1.0, and ProFonts 1 programs on a
single CD-ROM.
The Station has developed a com-
plete turnkey system using the CDTV
player - a "CDTV Personal
Workstation", calling it Odyssey. The
system includes a CDTV unit, 1084S
monitor, printer, external floppy drive,
modem, mouse and keyboard, and a
CD-ROM package containing ProWrite
3.2, Flow 3.0, DesignWorks, ProFonts 1
and a large quantity of public domain
software on a single compact disk."
"We looked around for the best pro-
ductivity software applications to have
on the CD and found the source right in
our own backyard. New Horizons has
provided quality productivity applica-
tions to the Amiga market since the
computer' s inception. Their software is
the icing on the cake for this workstation
to fill a huge need in the educational
marketplace", said Darwyn Hanna,
owner of The Station.
The suggested retail price for the
Odyssey is $US1995 and includes New
Horizons CD-ROM software.
ACAR6
continued on page 8
MEET THE
CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARDS
68030 Power, Up to 16MB RAM and SCSI Controller All in One
IT'S LIKE AN ENTIRE
FACTORY ON ONE BOARD
(ust look what you get from this
workhorse, powerhouse:
• 33 or 22Mhz 68030 Accelerator
• Up to 16MB of fully DMA-able 32-bit
wide memory expansion (13MB on
22Mhz model)
• High Performance, Auto-Booting,
DMA SCSI Hard Drive Controller
able to DMA directly into ALL
memory
• SCSI Connector for External SCSI
Peripherals
• Screen Icon-Based 68000 Mode Switch
SERIES II A2000-COMBO
+SCSI Drive Installed
All A2000
Expansion
Slots Free
This single GVP SERIES II A2000-COMBO board gives you more
power, performance and control over your Amiga® system than any
4 other boards out there.
You want to expand your Amiga's
memory? ... the SERIES II A2000-
COMBO does it and does it big.
You want to make your Amiga faster
than a speeding bullet?... the SERIES II
A2000-COMBO does that too.
You want to use your Amiga with
virtually every and any SCSI device on
the market -from CD-ROM drives, to
Magneto-Optical and tape-based stor-
age devices?... the SERIES II A2000-
COMBO does it all.
You want all the storage capacity of a
3.5", 500MB hard drive on a single
card?. ..Yep— It's an option.
You want to save lots of time with your
desktop publishing.ray-tracing, render-
ing and animation programs?...
Nothing's faster than the SERIES II
A2000- COMBO.
You want to use your Amiga as a
special effects generator for broadcast
quality videos?... the SERIES II A2000-
COMBO perfectly complements New
Tek's Video Toaster™ special effects
system.
Plus, when you install the SERIES 11
A2000-COMBO board directly into your
Amiga's CPU accelerator slot, you still
have all 5 of your original expansion
slots open and free for other uses.
If that doesn't make the SERIES H
A2000-COMBO the Chairman of the
Boards, we don't know what does.
For more information on how you can
put the Chairman of the Boards —
SERIES 11 A2000 COMBO - to work for
you, call 215-337-8770.
Internal SCSI
Hard Drive
1MB(22Mhr)or K«SSS»
4MB(33Mhz) up to 500MB!) \
Surface-mounted
32-bit wide
Memory,
Optional "Hard-Disk-Card" Conversion Kit
Converts me SERIES II A200O-C0MB0 board Into a
"Hard-Disk-Card" as well! Drive mounts on the back
of the board, saving even more space!
Built-in GVP
Series II DMA
SCSI Controller
Surface-mounted 68030 CPU
and 68882 FPU
(22 or 33Mhz)
Up to 12MB of 32-bit
wide, User-installable
SIMM32 Memory
Expansion
A Ask your
dealer for the
GVP A2000-COMBO 22 OR 33
bundled with a Hard Drive Kit
S1MM32 and GVP are irademarks ol Great valley Products, Inc.
Amiga, A2O0O and A3000 are registered trademarks ol
Commodore-Amiga, Inc.
Video Toaster is a trademark ol NewTek Inc.
GREAT VALLEY PRODUCTS INC.
Distributed In Australia By
PERIPHERALS PIT 110
lit Floor, 257 Hawthorn Road. Caulfield Notch. 3161 Phont: (Oil 532 8555 Kaa: <03l 532 8556
Although no plans were announced
for local distribution of the Odyssey, it
would not be surprising to see similar
compilations of software appear once
Commodore start shipping the A690
CD-ROM drive for the Amiga 500.
TurboPrint
Professional
This amazing utility will greatly en-
hance your printer outputs and provides
a whole range of new printout options.
In most cases this improved perform-
ance will also be accompanied by an
increase in overall printing speed.
Some of the features boosted by
TurboPrint are greatly enhanced
smoothing algorithms, brightness and
contrast control (gamma correction),
image rotation, aspect ratio control,
matching print colours to screen, en-
hanced support for mono printers, mir-
ror print, multiple copies, poster mode
(up to 64 sheets), four colour separa-
tions and magnification and reduction.
RRP $140. From GSoft Pty. Ltd.
(08) 254 2261 or fax (08) 254 2261.
Dealer enquiries welcome.
Digiview Image Fixer
Another nifty item from GSoft is a
small box which simply plugs in be-
tween your DigiView and the camera.
The improvements are remarkable. No
more masses of horizontal lines in your
pictures. If you have this problem with
your camera and DigiView, don't go
out and buy a special black and white
camera that will only be used with
DigiView, get an Image Fixer.
AvaUablefor$79fromGSofton(08)
254 2261 or fax (08) 221 2261.
DCTV PAL in Australia
Color Computer Systems have been
appointed a distributor of DCTV PAL
by Activa International the world-wide
marketing agents for the product Don
Sforcina of CCS says that "It will liter-
ally provide 24 bit graphics for the
masses. It's a mini computer graphics
revolution on the Amiga that has no
equal on other computer platforms."
Initial sales have been excellent and
much interest has also been shown in
Color Computer Systems exclusive
'DCTV PRO PACK'. The PRO PACK
includes DCTV PAL, Draw 4D Pro, a
new multi-featured 3D animation pro-
gram that renders directly to DCTV,
and a 90 minute tutorial video tape
DCTV: A Guided Tour.
Color Computer Systems will be
marketing a full range of video output
converters, DCTV add-ons and urili-
ties. Mid year they'll be releasing a dual
channel 16 bit, 48KHz sampling, CD
quality audio and DCTV realtime edit-
ing and playback system using
Amigavision. All sound and video will
be played back in realtimedirecdy from
hard disk. DCTV PAL RRP$1,295. For
more information phone (09) 349 6492.
continued on page 10
NEW YEAR SPECIALS
AMIGA BEETLE MOUSES ! $65 High resolution (320DP1) precision
mouse for the Amiga. Flexible cord and ergonomically designed.
Available in a range of colors!
» TURBOPRINT PRO $140-
Awesome improvements to your
printouts, allows full colour
seperations. gready improves
output on color printers, superb.
» HP DESKJET 500C $1999-
NEW 300 DPI Color Inkjet printer.
Absolutely superb results
Can't find it anywhere? Call us!
Available NOW.. ATonce PLUS $499 An upgrade to the very popular
ATonce board. Now runs at !6MegHz giving Norton SI of 16!! Supports
Windows 3. Dos 5, full 640K Dos memory, boots direct from Dos partition
on any Amiga Dos compatible hard drive.
AMOS
$97
AMOS Compiler
$75
AMOS 3D
$75
CanDo vl.5
$155
Deluxe Paint IV
$175
Directory OPUS
$65
IniageFinder
$95
Pelican Press
$135
ProPage
$375
Quarterback
$75
TurboPrint Pro
$140
Coming soon THE ANSWER!
From ihe creators of the Audio IMAGER (us!) comes The ANSWER!. This arrowing tittle unii
allows anyone with an Amiga and a Sound Sampler, (any type) to turn their Amiga into a
sophisticated answering machine. It answers the phone, plays sound files onto the phone line,
samples line activity, responds and takes messages!
TWO MEG CHIP RAM ON YOUR AMIGA 500?
Yes, now it's possible. With the new AX-RAM FOUR you can have TWO
Meg Chip RAM PLUS an additional 2 Meg FAST RAM, PLUS a clock
calender all in the normal A501 slot of your Amiga 500. $540 (with 4Meg
installed) $350 (with 2.0 meg installed).
What's new in AMIGA AUDIO?
Audio Engineer Version 2
now shipping with:
Audio Engineer JUNIOR $189
Audio Engineer PLUS $369
Premier Amiga Sampling Systems
Your AMIGA"
Specialists..
GSOFT my ui
PO Box 59. Hiiabah SA SI 14
Ph{08) 254 226I.Fa»(08> 254 2261 '
[M —
ACN 007 060 ?2H
ATonce
V1.27
The Ultimate IBM-AT-Emulator
for the Amiga 500
AT the lowest price
$499
80286 processor + Multitasking
704K + 8M Extended/Expanded memory
Boot from any hard drive
Support all Amiga hardware
Copy from DOS to DOS with supplied utility
VGA-EGA-CGA Graphics
Dealers required
2M A500 RAM board $279
105M Quantum hard drive $795
Fit this into your A590 and fly
Fonhof Computer Supplies
64 Cross St, Baulkham Hills NSW 2153
Phone (02) 639 7718 Fax (02) 639 5995
ACAR8
AH photographs are of
a<tual DCTV screens.
The Future Is Here
▲ Paint digitize and display full color 031 video graphics on any Amiga;
▲ Capture a video frame in 10 seconds from any color video camera. (Also
works with still video cameras, video disk and still frame capable VCR' s.)
. Display and capture full color 24 bit high resolution images.
•■ • . . ' ■ ■ . '.•."•-■■
Convert DCTV™ images fo or from any IFF
display format (including HAM and 24 bit).
Paint, digitize and conversion software
are all included.
▲ Works with all popular 3D programs.
A Animate in full b!J| color. ®
$1199
* Min. 1 Meg. required
DCTV "(Digital Composite Television) is a revolutionary new video display and digitizing system for
the Amiga. Using the Amiga's chip memory as its frame buffer memory, DCTV "creates a full color NTSC display
with all the color and resolution of television. Sophisticated true color video paint, digitizing and image processing
software are all combined into one easy to use package included with DCTV." DCTValso works with all popular
3D programs to create full color animations that can be played back in real time.
DIGITAL
Distributed in Australia by Power Peripherals -1st Floor 257 Hawthorn Road, Caulfield North 3161
3 • Facsimile (03) 532 8556
ynuMVKim&zmi:
Virtual Reality
Spectrum Holobyte has launched a
series of virtual reality games under
their new subsidary, CyberStudio. The
product line is called Virtuality and the
first games are intended for arcades.
In Virtuality, players wear a seven-
pound head piece and a four-pound
control unit around their waists. The
stand on a small platform while con-
nected to the game units. Movements
are controlled by the player's hand
movements ,on a specially designed joy-
stick.
In the first generation of the games,
the graphics are a bit blocky and move-
ments can be jerky. Graphics are poly-
gon-based, though they will be updated
as better technology comes out.
Consumers can expect to pay about
$1 per minute to play. Spectrum
Holobyte expects to release the first
Virtuality titles available to personal
computers in about three years.
Charles Hill, of AmReport Interna-
tional, contacted Spectrum Holobyte
and asked what was being used to drive
these units: Intel-based, Macs, Amigas
or custom hardware.
The response:
"... Virtuality systems are using a
customized Amiga setup. 1 don't know
which cities the systems will be first
appearing in.
I'm sure that when Gilman Louie,
our CEO, referred lo "home PC ver-
sions" he was referring to the personal
computer market, rather than MS-DOS
specifically."
ARexx Script-Writers
Wanted
Work is well advanced on the next
version of Contact. Users of the current
version 1.2 should act quickly if they
want to submit an ARexx script. They
receive a free upgrade if it is included in
the new release (effectiveness and use-
fulness of the script will be the criteria,
taking into account whether it dupli-
cates the functions of existing or com-
peting scripts).
The next release of Contact will
include numerous features requested by
users, as well as some extra ones thought
of by the author and publisher, and will
be accompanied by an expanded manual .
For more information contact Desk-
top Utilities on (06) 239 6658.
Mouse Balls
From the South China Morning Post
we reprint the following article on com-
puter mouse maintenance, with abso-
lutely no comment whatsoever:
If a mouse fails to operate or should
it perform erratically, it may need a hall
replacement. Because of the delicate
nature of this procedure, replacement
of mouse balls should only be attempted
by properly trained personnel.
Before proceeding, determine the
type of mouse balls by examining the
underside of the mouse. Domestic balls
will be harder and larger than foreign
balls. Foreign balls can be replaced
using the popoff method. Domestic balls
are replaced using the twistoff method.
PageStream 2.2
Mouse balls are not usually static sen-
sitive. However, excessive handling can
result in sudden discharge.
It is recommended that each replacer
have a pair of spare balls for maintain-
ing optimum customer satisfaction, and
that any customer missing his balls
should suspect local personnel of re-
moving these necessary items.
Yet Another
Magazine-on-a-Disk
Amiga News has joined the array of
magazine-on-a-disk publications bat-
tling for space in DFO:. Of course, disk
magazines lack the read-on-a-bus fea-
ture or the handy wrap-dead-fish op-
tion, however they are proving to be
popular amongst devout Amiga users.
Amiga News presents information on
a screen by screen basis, as opposed to
the usual text file and reader of most
other disks. The first issue was a bit
light, but much more is promised in
future editions, which will be published
bi-monthly around the 15th of each
month.
If you want to know more, or you
wish to place an IFF image-ad in the
next issue, write to Australian Amiga
News, PO Box 499, Ashgrove 4060.
PageStream 2.2
Shipping any time now, PageStream
2.2 boasts an totally new interface, many
additional drivers for importing files,
i mproved 24-bit support and much more.
For more information call
Computermate on (02) 457 8388.
ACAR 10
TechnoSound
Turbo
Hardware plus
Software:
$79
Upgraded version of New Dimensions' acclaimed hardware and software
stereo sound sampler. Simply plug your sound source into the unit and
fire up the sampling software. New multi-tasking software features a
MIDI sequencer, and a host of exciting special effects including real-
time echo, phasing, pitch shifting and other voice synlh effects.
"-.no-nonsense, low-cost, easy-to-use system.-" 81%, Amiga
Format, September 1991
Audio Engineer Version 2
This awesome sampling & editing software is packed with
powerful new features.
Audio Engineer software only $99
Audio Engineer Plus $369
Audio Engineer Junior $189
P.D. Software
Paks
Kaotic Koncepts supports the intentions of public domain
authors, namely to allow wide distribution of software with
minimal copying charges. All i'ak prices Include postage
and handling. These disks plus FISH and many more are
available individually for $2.50 plus $1.00 P&P for any size
order. Katalog disks $2.50 including postage. All disks
supplied arc Nashua brand. Blank disks $15 per box of 10.
Nashua disk boxes (hold 90 3.5" disks) $17.
KaoticTrxtlJlilil.fi
7 disks: leil editors & ulililic* •
aWordwortb dcuio
$17
Kaotic Vidro Utilitiea
3 disks with over 20 video
utilities aud fouls
S8
Kaotic KoucrjM Kaos
KotnpiUttion
7 disks of stiuiuiiig Miuidelbfol
& Julia sett
S17
Kaotic Brain Strain Games
7 disks of Braiu Taxing Games
$17
Kaotic Klipart Paks
lOdiskPfdo
Kaotic Klip-Art Pak I plus
***NEW!!***
Klip-Art Pak II
Klip-Art Pak III
Any 1 Klip-Art Pak $23
Any 2 Klip-Art Pnlu $43
All 3 Klip-Art Paki $60
Kaotic KAinpaigna
Bull Run. Nuke. Metro. Kingdom at
War. K i:; ... ScaUikc Empire,
Jeopard
$12
***NEW!!*»*
Kaotic Games Paks -
5 disks of playable deiuc* per pak
$12p«rpak
Kaotk* Ganir* Pnk 1 -
Turrbau II. Xeuou II. X-OuuBlooc P'Pcma«ia.^e Uu otKhables.
Mouey. Dauc Dare II
Kaolic Games Pak 2
Gods. Magic Pockets. New
Zealand Story. Flood. Tbe Plague*
The Secret of Monkey Islaud
Kaotic Games Pak 3
HamiuerfisU Tbe Power,
Moousbiue Races. Wipeoui.
Gliosibuslers II. Mega-lo-Mauia
Kaolic Game* Pak 4
Anoalyle, Moousloiie, A Hard
Day's Knight. Lotus II. Chanipiou
of the Raj, Lciuuiiugs
Kaotic GaniM Pak 5
Exile. Prehistorik. Captive,
itoochab'
MadDog Williams
Kaolic Gainn Pak 6
Yobuida. Tbe Ultimate Ride,
Cadaver, Baule Isle, Supaplex.
Fuzzball
***
Ai i v 2 Games Paks $23
Any 3 Gaines Paks $34
Any 4 Gaines Paks S43
Any 5 Gantes Paks $52
All 6 Gain*. Pak. $60
Kaotic Arcade Parlour Pakr
5 disk Paks of sreade action
$12 per Pak
Kaotic Arcade Pak 1
McgabalL Missile Command. SbalL Dragoucave. Car. 7-Tilea. Orid-
Runner. Rebound, Invaders. Miniblast
Kaolic Arcade Pak 2
Sys, Slotcars. Troo. Cat & Mouse Shark. GaJac!k\ Worm. BalL
Mooubasc Mirrorwars, Stemschlag, Running. Drip, Spacewar,
Cosmo2. Flaschbeir. Blizzard.
Kaotic Arcade Pak 3
Pacmau-87. Girl-Actiou. Hemroids. ST-Bash. Grav Attack. Eat Mine,
Hovertauk. Humailia. Triclops Invasioa.
Mtgn Kaotic Arcade Pak (all 3 Arcade Pakt)
$34
Kaotic Biinnria Utilities
5 disks set with 30 finance
database, budgeting and calendar
•12
Kaotic Label Laboratory
2 disk set containing Labclbase3.
RLC210. DUkpriuU SuperRciUb
plus ready-made labels
$6
Kaotic Font Themes
3 disk set couuiuing fouls &
utilities
$8
Kaotic Icon Laboratory
2 disk set with 15 Icon Programs
and many icous ready to use
$6
C64
KCS Power
Cartridge
POWER RESET Freeze and
backup any program
POWERMON Powerful
Machine Language monitor,
that leaves ALL memory free
for programming
Primer Tools, screen-dumps.
rotate print, self-detects
printer interface
Powerful BASIC toolkit more
than 20 new commands
Disk Tools load 6 times faster
Tape Tools work 10 times
faster
$49
Protar Hard Drives
- high speed SCSI controller (900kb/sec or 5 times A590 speed); SCSI thru
port
- up to 8 MB RAM on board via Protar autocon figuring RAM modules
- auto-booting, auto-parking, silent operation; Games switch disables hard
drive but retains RAM for memory-hungry games, protecting the hard drive
against viruses.
- Quantum mechanisms with 64 Kb cache in DC version,
mechanisms in standard version
A500 I HMO
A500 IID40
A500 IID50
$620
$710
$820
A500 HD80
A500 HD50DC
A500IID100DC
A500 HD160DC
$1105
$985
$1175
$1695
TurboPrint Pro $149 I
I Say goodbye lo your priiiliug nightmares Willi tlus ucw
software package froin Oauuuiy
Contact
Name and address organiser
Directory Opus
$65
$69
IBM Price breakthrough
KCS Power PC Board:
PC Side
Video support: Hercules/CGA/EGA/VGA
Disk support: Int 3.S. En 3.5 & 5.25
Extensive Hard Drive Support
Phoenix-Bios - NEC VJ0 8 Mhz
Uses Amiga Serial and Parallel ports
Uses Amiga Mouse and Joystick ports
Full support of external memory expansions
Clock/Calendar + many more features
Amiga Side
512K Ram expansion
512K Ram Disk
Clock/Calendar
Totally transparent
Fits into A500 trapdoor
Adapter for A200O/A3O0O
available
No extra power supply
KCS Power PC Board + Software, for A500 Scall
KCS Adapter Card for A2O00/A3O0O $caU
Kaotic
KOnCeptS
Pty.Ltd.
ACN 053818465
Trade enquiries welcome
Phone orders: (03) 879 7098 or (050) 94 6358
Fax: (03) 819 5531
Please quote your credit card number, card type (Bankcard,
Mastercard or Visa) and expiry date.
Mail orders:
P.D Software: Hardware /Software:
Kaotic Koncepts P/L Kaotic Koncepts I'll.
c/- Underbool PO GPO Box 2150 T
Victoria 3509 Melbourne 3001
Cheques/Money orders payable to "Kaotic Koncepts Pty Ltd'.
Please add $3.50 P&H for hardware orders.
Courier service $10. E&OE
Amiga Beetle Mouse
High resolution (320 DPI), ergonomic mouse for
the Amiga. Lots of colours available!
$69
Analog Joystick
Adapter
Get the most out of your flight simulator. Allows
IBM and Apple analog joysticks to be used with
the Amiga.
$30
Kickstart Swap
Board
Choose between any 3 Kickstart ROMS at
the flick of a switch. Plugs into A500/A2000
ROM sockets. Ribbon cable lets you locate
the board out of harm's way. Supports
Workbench V2.0. Three position switch can
be mounted anywhere.
$50
Protar 1/2 Meg +
Clock/Calendar
Top quality surface mount design.
Disable switch.
$75
2 Meg for A500
Unpopulated (0 Megabytes) $140
Populated to 2.0 Megabytes $298
4 Meg for A500
Unpopulated (0 Megabytes) $220
Populated to 2.0 Megabytes $379
Fully populated (4.0 Megabytes) $539
Both the 2 Meg & 4 Meg boards leave the main
expansion bus free & include Clock/Calendar.
8 Meg for A500/A1000
Cortex expansion fits to main bus. leaving warranty
intact: auto-configuring: bus pass-thru; uses standard
SIMMS; special metal "foot" for A1000 version. RAM
test software included.
Omeg $425 4 meg $734
2 meg $580 8 meg $1024
DigiFixer „ $79
This Australian- made product allows DigiView to be used
with colour home video cameras without messy interference
patterns.
Video Digitiser/Colour Splitter $499
Combines colour splitter and DigiView compatible digitiser in
one box. The package features saturation control, S-VHS or
composite input, manual or auto colour select, external power
pack, cables for connecting Auto-Select Module and ColorView
software.
Video Breakout Box
$89
With S-VHS, RCA and Scan inputs and outputs, this unit allows
any video equipment to be connected together.
Phoenix Motherboard for
A1000
Includes 1MB Agnes, 2MB RAM (1MB chip), 68881/2 socket,
SCSI controller. A2000 expansion slot and video slot. 8MB
daughterboard connector, battery-backed clock, sockets for 4
Kickstarts (1.3 supplied), drive swap switch.
$945
SCRAM 500
Power to the People
Following last month's article on the ben-
efits of expanding your Amiga, Daniel Rutter
now takes us on a detailed look at the new
SCRAM 500.
The A500 doesn't look like a real computer. It looks like
a hyperthyroid C64. People don't take it seriously,
despite the fact that it has all the basic gubbins you find
in the A2000, just without the hefty case, loud fan and
expansion slots. So, theoretically, anything you can do to a
2000 you can also do to a 500 - it just costs a bit more.
In the past, this bit more tended to get close to the price
difference between the 500 and the 2000 thanks to hefty
premiums being put on separate power supplies, cases, cables
and so forth. Virtually anything you could plug into your
machine was made somewhere other than here, and hence got
further slugged by exchange rates and import duties.
All this has changed, with the advent of MegaMicro
Technology' s SCRAM 500. In case you haven' t heard of this
company, it'srunby Norm Jackson, whodidalotof work with
M.A.S.T. (the Tiny Tiger hard drives were Jackson's brain-
child, among other gadgets). This is an impressive pedigree,
and the SCRAM 500 lives up to all expectations.
Specifications
So what's it do, I hear you ask. The SCRAM 500 is a
combination RAM expansion, SCSI interface and (optional)
68030 accelerator for the A500 or 1000. RAM can be installed
up to 8MB - so with your 500' s included RAM and the stock
512K expansion you've got the maximum 1.x addressable
9MB. The SCSI interface is absolutely vanilla (no funny
voltages tied to non-standard pins) and should hence work
with anything. The 68030 option, which is not yet available
but is coming Real Soon Now, will fit inside with zero fuss.
Which brings me to the case. The SCRAM 500 is a great
deal more elegant than many such devices - it's only about 45
x 70 x 250mm. When slotted into the A500's expansion bus
it extends to the back of the machine, forward to about the level
of the Control key, and stands less than a centimetre higher
than the case. Neat.
The case is heavy-gauge steel, the back panel has a SCSI
D-connector and an autoboot switch (to be disabled for 1 .2 or
lower). The front panel features power, RAM and diskLEDs.
This is nice. The extra disk LED means your hard drive (with
its noisy fan) can be stowed out of sight behind the desk with
a remote power supply switch and you still know when it's
being accessed.
The RAM LED is also a good idea - it lets you know when
your RAM disk is being accessed and if something is doing a
lot with RAM when it should just be sitting there; it's also nice
to see it light up every time you hit a key, flicker while you
move the mouse and lock on when AutoCLI' s Screensaver cuts
in. So I'm a gadget freak. So sue me. The SCRAM itself draws
all its power from ihe A500.
Incidentally, MegaMicro also makes a SCRAM 2000,
which is a card-mount version of the same thing and also
features a 16 bit "SuperSCRAM" option, but I can' t comment
on this since I didn't get one to play with, possibly because I
don't have a 2000.
Installation Software
The SCRAM comes with a disk called "SCRAMPREP",
which along with all the appropriate libraries and devices to
get a SCRAM-driven hard disk running also contains the
excellent ScramPrep program, which allows the configura-
tion, low level formatting, error checking and monitoring of
statistics of any connected SCSI device.
It's all very intuitive and easy to use, even for the rank
beginner, whilst still retaining full control over cylinder-by-
cylinder partitioning, dostype and filesystem for those who
want it. A program very well written and essentially bulletproof,
which does everything you need to do.
With the SCRAM I also got for review a "SCRAMdrive
ACAR 12
ALLEN
COMPUTER
SUPPLIES.
The people who care!
Not only the largest,
not only the best PD
Collection in Australia
BUT NOW
LICENCEWARE
Australia's only distributor of
DEJA VU (formerly AMOS)
Licenceware. Top quality software
at a price all can afford - $8.00
Yes $8.00. Contact us for details.
WORD FACTORY
C.Y.A.D.
BIG TOP FUN
ROCKET MATHS
MUSIC BOX
MAGPIPES CLIP ART
C-TEXT (AMOS REQ)
SPRITE X (AMOS REQ)
POWER PLANNER
{Full list 67 Titles)
• All disks 100% guaranteed.
(We will replace or refund)
• Owing to increased demand
all P.D. disks only $4.00 each
All orders add $2.00 p&p
Allen Computer Supplies
where you will get more for
your dollar!
Call us on (03) 725 3379 /^
Fax us on
(03) 723 1780
432 Dorset Road,
Crayon Vic. 3136
CD
Qrf
|i*V
RapiSoft
PuMcDomaiii
RapiSoft is now an official distributor of Deja Vu Licenccwaresoftwarc from the UK. Over sixty
disks are now in this outstanding collection; a free catalogue is included with each order.
All packs contain loading instructions and have been extensively tested for viruses.
Prices include postage. Most orders are dispatched within 24 hours of receipt.
The Ultimate games Tacky ol. #2
$27
With hundreds of satisfied customers around the country, you too will be amazed at the high
quality of software contained in our Games Packs! Volume 2 contains 8 disks full of Amiga
public domain and shareware games. From action, strategy to role playing and trivia; there is
something in this pack for everyone. Over 40 new games are crammed into the pack, some of
which are: BattleMech. Bullrun, Castle of Doom. Chess. Dtris. GridRunner, Invaders, Megaball,
Rebound, TrekTrivia, and many others! A small amount to pay compared to the amount of
enjoyment you will get out of the pack. For only 68 cents a game, it's an offer not to miss!
The^ayiTackjVol #2
$19
Suitable for both Amiga novices and veterans aliko, the RapiPack is a collection of high quality
software which everyone can use. Volume two of the RapiPack contains six disks in total ; two
disks full of games, one disk packed with applications (including a word processor and
database), one disk containing a superb graphics and sound demonstration, and another
containing a sound editor. A utility disk contains a vast number of handy utilities which will make
using the Amiga so much easier! Full loading instructions are provided with the pack.
The 'Education Tacf^
Educate yourself and the kids with RapiSoft's
Amiga Public Domain Education Pack. Learn
vital skills while having fun at the same time;
Ideal for teachers, students and parents!
Some of the programs in the pack include:
* Spelling Tutor
* Crossword Creator
' Weather Forecaster
* World Databank
" Scientific Calculator
" Gravity Simulator
Over 30 great programs in all!
• Study Aids
• Writing tester
" Typing Tutor
• Graph Plotters
ONLY
$27
Other ¥.<D. Tacks
The Ultimate Games Pack Vol. #1
The Dynamic Demo Pack
The DTP (Desktop Publishing) Pack
...only $27 each!
• •••■•••••••••••a
We Have the complete range of Amicus,
Amigan & fish disks available, as wctias
TUT utilities, demos and Cjl'fPictures.
All individual disks are only $4 each
'T>eia 'l'u Licenceware SS per single disc
FREE PACK!
Buy any 3 $27 packs,
get the 4th pack free!
Offer only valid tor o'dois
placed during February 1992
Mai) vour order to:
RapiSoft
P.O. Box 19
Forest Hill Vic 3131
Fax Ord?r$;
(03)894-1137
All fax orders must be paid by
credit card
r
i
i
j
□
Q
Q
J
Please send me the following:
copies of RapiSoft's Catalogue Disks @ $5 per set
. copies of The RapiPack Vol #2 @ $1 9 each
. copies of Ultimate Games Pack #2 @ $27 each
. copies of The Education Pack @ $27 each
copies of Dynamic Demo Pack @ $27 each
copies of Ultimate Games Pack #1 @ $27 each
. copies of The DTP Pack @ $27 each
— — ^— ^^— Total Amount: $
I
I
i
* 1 enclose Cheque/Money Order for above amount,
I OR Charge my □ Bankcard □ Visa □ MasterCard
| Card No.:
■ Exp. Dale: _ Signature: _
I
Name:
Address:
Suburb:
Postcode:
52". This is a 52MB 3.5" Quantum hard
drive (in this case the ProDriveLPS 52S,
but the 105S for twice the storage is also
available) in an obviously Macintosh
case, with a SCSI passthrough, internal
power supply, pushbutton SCSI address
selector and JJ3C captive mains connec-
tor.
Mr Jackson is looking for a cheaper
case, in which users can install their own
drive if they so wish, but for the time
being you're stuck with the rebadged
Mac unit.
Not that there's anything wrong with
that - everybody knows that Macintosh
stuff is superbly engineered, whatever
other gripes you may have - except
price, an admittedly important factor.
Future Possibilities
Mr Jackson also told me of some
interesting new ideas he's got in the
pipeline - like, for example, using the
new submini 2" hard drives designed for
laptops, and mounting one actually in-
side the SCRAM 500'scase,withpower
from an AC plugpack since these tiny
drives use so little. Thus, in one box the
size of Castro's daily cigar supply, you
could have 8MB of RAM, a 100MB
hard drive, and a 68030 accelerator!
He's also looking into magneto-optical
storage, and floptical disks - watch this
space.
On taking the SCRAM 500 apart, I
was struck by its simplicity. One board,
with a take-off socket for the bus con-
nector, sockets for the ZIP RAM's, four
tastefully named custom chips - Bertie
for autoconfigure logic, Cyril 8 for SCSI
autoboot, Griswold for RAM refresh
and master timing generation and
Humphrey formiscellaneousRAM con-
trol, sundry other bits and pieces and a
neat front and back panel.
The whole thing can be slid out of the
case after removing the bus connector
board and its shroud, the work of a
couple of minutes.
Documentation
The manual is simple and compre-
hensible and features complete sche-
matic diagrams for the SCRAM 500 in
the back, so that, as Mr Jackson told me,
wherever you take your SCRAM, you or
a serviceman will know what plugs into
what. Good work.
What more can I say? It works. It
continues to work. It hasn't hiccupped
once.
A magnificent piece of engineering,
for a very reasonable price; if you're
looking to expand your 500 (or 1000, or
2000 - MegaMicro have tested it on
every machine going, and it's invulner-
able to Phoenixed AlOOO's, accelerated
2000' s, you name it), there is really now
only one way to go.
The SCRAM 500 with 2MB of RAM
(as tested) is $499; the SCRAM drive 52
is $799, from MegaMicro Technology,
PO Box 511, Bondi Junction 2022, fax
(02) 3631246.
COMPUTA MAGIC PTY. LTD.
44 Pascoe Vale Road, Moonee Ponds, 3039
Phone (03) 326-0133
DCTV Now Available
Preview and paint 24 bit images with 16 million available colours.
Digitise 24 bit images and then modify them with the included paint program.
No special hardware required.
$1,149.00
Brush Pen
When is a mouse not a mouse? When its a Brush Pen.
The mouse in the shape of a pen. Ideal for slow accurate work in your favourite drawing
program, and with our mouse accelerator you can still get into menus in a hurry.
$99.00
Victoria's fastest growing Amiga Retail and
Education Dealer.
Totally Committed to Amiga
ACAR 14
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*22 Mhz or 33 Mhz models available
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* Series II SCSI controller with GVP Faaast Rom
* Up to 16Mb of 32-bit-wide RAM (60ns)
* Optional mounting bracket for 3.5" SCSI hard disk.
* Supports All Workbench revisions and Amiga UNIX
* The fastest ZERO wait-state design possible.
22 Mhz. 1Mb RAM
$ 1 ,399
33Mhz. 4 Mb RAM
$2,399
GREAT VALLEY PRODUCTS INC.
GVP SERIES II A2000 HARD CARD EXPANDIBLE TO 8Mb RAM
52Mb SERIES II HARD CARD ORAM
80Mb SERIES II HARD CARD ORAM
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S 979
$1369
GVP A2000 SCSI CONTROLLER EXPANDABLE TO 8Mb RAM
A2000 SCSI CONTROLLER ORAM
A2000 SCSI CONTROLLER 2MB RAM
$399
$499
Includes DCTV Paint Package
Full colour Composite Video Digitizer
Full PAL Video
Complete Picture manipulation
Millions of colours
Use any composite colour camera
to Digitize images
NEW! $1149.00
NswTek
INCORPORATED
NewTek Media Station
* Digi-View Gold V4.0
* Elan Performer
* Digi- Paint V3.0
$319-
* New for February *
"GVP 28Mhz 040 Accelerator
(Amiga 3000 Only).
'GVP 286 16Mhz AT Emulator
(GVPA500+ Hard drives Only).
'Amiga Graphics Tablets.
'Art Department Professional 2.
IMPACT VISION
24 bit RGB, Composite, S- Video,
Frame Grabber, Dcinterlacer, Keyer&
Picivre-in-Picwrc all in one board!
GOLDEN IMAGE
HAND SCANNER js-105-lM
Suits A500/2000/3000
Scans up to 400 DPI
Requires 1MB Minimum
INC's "Touch-Up" Software
$389-
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Computer Supplies « g^STJflSSt ** se.
-n Ph: (03)725 6255
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Mail Order Welcome! e s^ oe
AMIGA Specialists
ft WE DON'T JUST SELL AMIGA'S WE USE THEM,
THIS DOCUMENT WAS PRODUCED ON AN AMIGA DESKTOP PUBLISHING SYSTEM <
" Prices Subject to change without Notice
Budget Digitizing
Datel's Video Digitiser II
Digitising graphics from video can be a
great source of material for use in your own
work - providing of course you respect copy-
right laws. George Kimpton checks out one of
the latest contenders, similar in power to the
popular Vidi frame grabber.
Many people enjoy fiddling around with graphics - some
of you have probably got your feet wet with DigiView,
spending hours tweaking the pictures on your monitor
screens, trying to achieve perfection. A slow and cumbersome
process. There is a way to get lots of pictures, of a slightly
lower quality, which can also be used for animation using a
Frame Grabber.
You could lash out and buy one those great systems
advertised in the American magazines - but who has that sort
of money anyway? If you're fortunate enough to have a VCR
which has digital freeze frames, you could use it to step
through the frames and digitise them one at a lime using
DigiView.
Alternatively there are budget priced frame grabbers which
offer reasonable performance - the most recent of these to
become available in Australia is the DATEL Electronics
Video Digitizer II from Macro-soft.
This new addition comes in two modules, the digitiser and
an optional colour splitter, the splitter costing around $250
extra.
The software in Video Edit mode
allowing you to modify an animation
Video Editor
Max Franes:
Fi> ane Run :
Speed set :
;.ta±>t :
End :'
Men size
T.L. node: :
Loop node :
Bl
□
144.1 <
- '
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im
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Digitise mode for frame grabbing or digitising single
images or a complete animation
Installation
Fitting is easy, you just remove the cover on the expansion
slot on the side of the Amiga 500 and plug the digitiser in. If
you have the colour splitter it just plugs piggy back style into
the pass through connector of the digitiser. These pass through
connectors allow the modules to be inserted between a hard
disk, and the A500 computer. A single interconnecting cable
passes the signal from the splitter to the digitiser.
There is also a version suitable for the 2000 series where
the boards plug into the internal expansion slots. You must
specify which version you need when ordering as there are
physical differences.
For those with an A2000 or better the colour splitter option
is not available and there are no plans in the pipeline.
After everything is plugged in, you boot up with the
digitising software and away you go. It is also possible to boot
up with some other software such as DPaint and then load this
program as you need it providing you have enough memory
available. A fat Agnus would be useful here.
With only one Meg on my A500 both programs could be
loaded - but not worked on. One point of interest is that the
hardware appears to be transparent when booting up and
running other programs so it could be left plugged in all the
time.
ACAR 16
continued on page 18
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low cost hard drive for Amiga 8 500 computers. Prima
blends a large capacity, low power Quantum™ hard drive
with the AdlDE™ host adapter for an unbeatable
combination.
Prima replaces the internal floppy drive but includes
Shuffle Board™ to make your external floppy drive
DFO:. Prima features auto-booting from FastFileSystem
partitions, high speed caching, auto-configuring, and
A-MaxII™ support. Formatted capacities of 52 and 105
megabytes are currently available.
Also suits Amiga 1000!
Introductory Pricing:
Prima 52Mb Quantum $749
Prima 105Mb Quantum $999
Call for other ICD Products
Sigmacom
Tel (02) 545 3383 )
(018)25 7471
Performance
The digitiser grabs frames at the rate
of l/50th of a second with the screen
update varying in accordance with the
numberof grey scales orbitplanesused.
Screen update speed can approach 15
frames a second using grey scale. Frames
can be grabbed as singles, sequences or
time lapse sequences as required. These
can be saved, depending on format, as a
sequence, IFF or raw data for playback
or processing.
The only hardware adjustments for
the digitiser are the brightness and con-
trast which when adjusted correctly al-
low the full range of 16 grey tones to be
displayed when operating in black and
white mode.
On booting, the editor screen comes
up displaying a working area of 256 X
256 pixels plus a toolbox with a format
similar to that on most tape recorders.
One thing that strikes me as odd here is
the choice of screen size. Certainly (he
program allows you to do full screen IFF
Saves, but to do this it actually stretches
each fourth pixel to give 320 X 256
pixels. One other thing to note here is
that the digitising system only works in
low resolution format.
In the edit screen toolbox are some
extra buttons which allow the display of
a running sample of the incoming video,
frame by frame, for sequence recording
or a single freeze frame depending on
your needs. You can also step through
the captured frames or do a continuous
run through by holding down thebutton.
The playback speed is adjustable with
a slider control. It is also possible to
display what they call a half size image
in the lower right comer of the screen
should you wish. In actual fact it is a
quarter screen.
One slightly confusing point in the
manual, which incidentally is rather
sparse, is the continuing reference to 16
colour frames when you are working in
grey shades unless you have purchased
thecoloursplitter. I think it really means
1 6 grey shades if the splitter is not fitted.
Options
The options menu allows you to
choose whether you wish to work in
Grey Scale, Sepia or colour palettes. If
you do not have the splitter fitted and
you go for colour, you get colour all
right, but they are rather weird false
colours linked to a temperature scale
based on the brightness levels. You can
also view the screen using a reduced
colour palette for speed while retaining
full bit plane data for saving and so on.
To. speed recording or frame grab-
bing it is also possible to blank the
screen for the duration of the sequence
recording. The options also allow you to
choose the IFF save format, either 256 x
256 or 320 x 256 pixels, imprint the
frame number into the top left of the
picture and/or move the screen to a
buffer for editing and vice versa. The
display option allows you to choose the
number of bit planes displayed.
Editing
The edit menu allows the usual cut,
copy, paste, brush and thankfully UNDO.
The brush is picked up from the cut or
copy buffer and can be dropped on the
screen or drawn with as in DPaint. One
point to note is that using SAVE appar-
ently clears the screen buffer of any cuts
or copies previously stored there.
The Effects menu allows you to switch
positive images to negative and vice
versa You can invert the screen hori-
zontally or flip it vertically, compress it
horizontally or vertically and clear the
screen to either black or white for edit-
ing work.
Frame Editor
The Frame Editor is accessed through
a button in the Editor Screen which
opens a dual display. These two win-
dows are the Record/Playback Screen
and the Information and Edit Screen -
the latter providing buffer images or
operating data. To the right are a series
of buttons and readouts providing frame
sequence information for editing.
Below this are acomprehensive range
of work buttons. These buttons allow
you the normal recorder facilities such
as Play, Rewind, etc, plus the editing
tools. Editing in the sense applicable
here is the stepping through a sequence,
looking at and/or removal of specific
frames and replacement with another
one if required. It is possible also to set
up time lapse recordings of frames.
One strange feature of this screen is
the strip of eight miniature monitor
screens across the bottom with different
colour patterns in each and which do not
seem to have any practical purpose.
Utilities included on the boot disk
include two Player programs and a shrink
facility. The main Player displays the
256 x 256 frame sequence the same as
shown with the digitiser and at the same
speed as it was saved. Loop mode is the
default. NOTE: it will not run if there is
not sufficient memory to load all saved
sequence frames.
The other player - Playerl - program
is similar in operation but uses miniature
images one quarter the size of the nor-
mal screens. This is to save memory by
using compact files. The other utility -
Shrink - produces these miniature frame
files. These player programs can be
installed on your program disk for show-
ing as needed.
Conclusions
Generally pretty easy to operate once
you get the hang of the non standard
symbols for the control buttons. It is a
pity it only operates in Lo-Res and 16
shades of grey. The odd ball screen size
is a bit of a nuisance but there are ways
around this such as brushes and their
ability to be shaped and sized in the
various paint programs. Definitely not
for the professional but very useful for
the enthusiastic amateur and at an af-
fordable price.
Colour Splitter
As I mentioned previously, this hard-
ware module just piggybacks on the
digitiser. A single lead with RCA con-
nectors is provided to bridge between
the Splitter and the Digitizer. There are
four additional adjustments, saturation
and red, green and blue intensities. There
is also a 5 pin DIN output connector for
future expansion or use with alternative
systems.
ACAR 18
A new boot disk comes with the
splitter. Hard Disk installation is pro-
vided for. This disk does away with the
Frame Editor and supplies a new Con-
trol Screen which appears to be solely
concerned with grabbing single frames
whether colour or black and white. You
can grab a single frame at any time while
watching acontinuously updated colour
or black and white display. Screen up-
dates are said to be in around one second
for colour.
Operating Modes
A choice of operating modes is avail-
able with black and white, eight, sixteen
or HAM colour modes of display being
selected with the appropriate control
button. It is also possible to grab either
red, green or blue filtered frames should
the need arise.
The menus are similar to that on the
digitiser disk with a few differences.
Loading is only from the Datel Raw
Format. Saving is either in the Raw
format or as IFF, again with the choice
of frame size. Incidentally Hot Keys are
supported in most menu functions this
time.
With the colour facility there are new
palette options available which allow
palette colour adjustments, default pal-
ettes and selected display colourmodes.
Colour distribution within the frame can
also be displayed.
The usual editing facilities, cut, copy,
paste and brush are available again with
the addition of the ability to display the
material residing in the cut/copy buffer
before using it. The same Effects menu
items, as found in the digitiser, are also
available here.
Conclusions
I was unable to test the colour splitter
at the time of writing but it seems a
reasonable price and sounds good pro-
viding it lives up to expectations arising
from reading the manual. It would ap-
pear a wise addition to the digitiser if
only because of the HAM facility.
Remember there is no colour splitter
for the A2000 series just a digitiser.
Recommended retail price on the
frame grabber is $262. For more infor-
mation call Macro-Soft on (08) 234
5050.
ATonce-Plus
16 Mhz IBM-AT-Emulator
for the Amiga 500/2000
Incl. 512k ram - optional 80287 co-processor
$499
80286-16 processor - Norton SI 16.2
6 Mbyte Extended/Expanded memory
Supports Commodore compatible hardrives (GVP etc)
Copy from DOS to DOS with supplied utility
VGA-EGA-CGA Graphics - Multitasking
Dealers required
A500 2M RAM board $259
including 2M RAM
105M Quantum hard drive $699
Fonhof Computer Supplies
64 Cross St, Baulkham Hills NSW 2153
Phone (02) 639 7718 Fax (02) 639 5995
PCM COMPUTERS PTY LTD
& NORTHWEST ELECTRONICS
Phone: (03) 701-0343 • Phone:(03)744-4440
We will no be undercut on any GVP
product call for proof.
A500 4Mb RAM expansion can access 2Mb chip 0Mb RAM fined $1 95.00
40 Mb IDE Internal hard drive A500, 1000, 2000 $640.00
80 Mb IDE Internal hard drive A500. 1000, 2000 $790.00
125 Mb IDE internal hard drive A500, 1000, 2000 $990.00
The above hard drives do not replace the Internal floppy, but sit behind it
DCTV PAL Digitiser & Genlock, displays 24 bit Images $1 1 99.00
A2000 GVP series 2, 52 Mb Quantum HD $620.00
A500 GVP series 2, 52 Mb Quantum HD $950.00
GVP FastROM update, increases speed by 50% $50.00
RAM to suit all GVP hard drive + RAM controllers per 1Mb $75.00
Amiga hardware virus detector $35.00
Amiga MIDI interface - in/thru/out $55.00
Mouse / Joystick switch $50.00
NEC 3D Multisync monitor $920.00
Digital sound studio by GVP $1 75.00
Amiga mice (Qtronix) with microswitches $55.00
5 1/4" disk drive suite all Amigas (V-DRIVE) 1.2 Mb $220.00
Disks 3.5" DSDD qty 1 - 1 00 $7.50
Disks 3.5" DSDD for all orders above 100 call for best deal CALL
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PUBLIC DOMAIN SOFTWARE ^^_^
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Minimum Order 10 disks /*»«*/
All software Is sent out next day C.O.D. L ~~-~J
PrlCM a. b| set to chirfli without note
ACAR 19
User Report
Pelican
Press
The Light-Hearted
Publishing Program
Desktop publishing for fun need not be cum-
bersome. Pelican Press proved to Stephen J
Eames there is life after Deluxe Print.
When I first sighted Pelican Press, I didn't pay a lot of
attention to it Pelican Press seems to have maintained a low
profile - with little promotion by the local distributor. How-
ever, being a curious type I eventually asked the sales assistant
for a demonstration and I was immediately impressed enough
to buy the package.
Once at home I settled in for what I thought would be a long
learning session only to find that by following the tutorial I had
practically mastered the program in 15-20 minutes. With
further reading I realised that this was more than a simple print
package - it was a drawing and paint program as well.
The package consists of three disks - the program and two
of clip-art - and two manuals, one of which explains the
programs operations whilst the other contains hardcopy of all
the graphics and fonts available in the package.
Opening the manual you are not confronted with a huge
amount of technical jargon. Instead, after a word about
making backups, they dive right into the program.
Pelican Pi>ess Card
Poster mode - notice the paint-like gadgets
Off To The Press
Pelican Press can help you create posters, signs, notes,
cards, calendars, and banners. Deluxe Print and PrintMaster
are very similar, however only Pelican Press includes a full
functioned drawing and paint system.
Also if you need to, you are able to view the full range of
clip-art categories, before placing it in your design from the
one menu requester.
Once you have chosen the relevant clip-art category, you
are returned to the work screen for art placement exactly
where you want it. If you decide to incorporate another image
you can select it from your chosen category by using the space
bar and stamping it into place with the left mouse button. It's
as easy as falling off a log.
But wait, there's more. How does vertical banners, books,
comics, newsletters, name tags, rebus puzzles, fax sheets,
letterheads, puppets wrapping paper and mobiles sound?
How do you create all these things so easily? Basically, it
comes down to manipulation of the various category sizes
when printing. When printing you have the choice of three
printout modes - colour, grayscale and oudine, plus you are
able to manipulate the eventual size of the finished product
from postage stamp size, to posters 40 feet high. You can
choose from preset sizes or calculate your own desired sizes.
The program tells you how many A4 sheets are required.
Working With Graphics
Object manipulation is the key to Pelican 's success. A host
of gadgets provide simple point and click control so you can
fiddle to your heart's content You can reduce or enlarge the
size of backgrounds before final placement in your creation
and if you are not happy with it you can return to the placement
gadgets and revise your layout with a minimum of fuss. You
ACAR 20
can even change various parts of the clipart quite easily
(different heads on different bodies etc).
The manual encourages you to explore all possibilities and
incorporate other clipart if desired. The only criticism here is
that the manual does not explain how to remap image palettes
to the default palette of Pelican Press.
Likes and Dislikes
The program won' t print effectively in banner mode using
Epson JX80 driver (white banding occurs) but will enable you
to print high density images using most of the printer drivers
provided.
Hard disk installation is simple.
Preview mode is very useful and the program is easy to use.
I use Pelican Press on a 1.2 WB, 1 meg machine with
external drives and a Citizen 200GX 9 pin colour printer. I am
able to gain very clean graphics printouts, choice of three
printout styles (colour, grey scale and outline) in all formats.
In conclusion I recommend this software package. Perhaps
there may be a range of clip art disks available for it in the
future.
The Pelican Press package is distributed by DataFlow on
(02) 331 6153. RRP is $149.95.
HI-TEK MONITOR FILTER
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ALL OTHER TYPES TO ORDER
Our high quality filters are made
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Its unique filtering qualities have
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doctors and government offices.
Our screens can be made to order.
No screen is too big or too small.
5>Oy.yi) incP&P Made in Australia Pat. 107266
■ ENHANCES ON SCREEN COLOURS
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Tel: (02) 671 1856 Fax Ph: 829 1113
MONITOR TYPE
PLEASE DEBIT MY
PAYMENT: PLEASE INDICATE METHOD LU CREDIT CARD
VISA - MASTERCARD - BANKCARD
□ I I I I I Li
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INfTIALS
SIGNATURE
POPULAR MODULE
EXCHANGE SERVICE
PARCOM Pty Ltd
Whites Hill Shopping Village
Samuel St
Camp Hill, Qld 41 52
(07)3952211
GAINRUN Pty Ltd
7/27 Justin Street
Smithfield
NSW 2164
(02)7571055
Send your PCB, PSU, Drive or Mouse
for next day replacement.
Reconditioned Modules available for
most models e.g.
C64.64C, 154111 PCB
$99.00
A500 PCB
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AMIGA DRIVE
$200.00
MOUSE
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A500 PSU
$75.00
ALL ITEMS MUST BE COMPLETE AND
IN SERVICEABLE CONDITION
THREE MONTHS WARRANTY
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Software for the small business, home, office, personal user and schools.
AmigaBASIC
The most tedious part of copying a program from a magazine
is searching for the inevitable typographical errors which
occur. Here's a smart solution from Leicester Hibbert.
Normally youhave to alternately read
the program listing on the screen and
then refer to the list in the magazine.
Soon your eyes start to lose focus, you
start to lose your place, your patience
and ... you need ProofReader!
We Amiga owners have an unfair
advantage over most other computer
users - our computer can talk.
So let's get it working andhaveitread
back our entered program as we proof-
read against the program listing in the
magazine.
When I started playing around with
this idea, I had the SAY TRANSLATES
commandreading unprocessedlistfiles.
This was a good start, but I soon discov-
ered that the Amiga's best guesses at
how to pronounce some of the
ArnigaBasic keywords were amusing to
say the least Also some punctuation
marks and other symbols were totally
ignored. You are sure to discover other
words or symbols which may be added
to the vocabulary of this program.
To use ProofReader, the program to
be checked, (assume it is called
"my. prog"), must be saved as an ASCII
file.
If you have saved the program in the
normal compressed binary format
(e.g.SAVE my.prog from the output
screen, or using the pull-down SAVE or
SAVE AS from the Project Menu), you
will have to prepare by loading the
program you wish to check, and then
from the output screen type.
SAVE "my.prog",A
Surrounding quotes arerequired here.
This will re-save the program back to
disk in the ASCII format (See page 8-
128 in the Amiga Basic Reference
Manual for details).
Then load and run ProofReader,
which will ask you for the name of the
file to read. Enter the program name,
and soon ProofReader will start reading
out the program listing to you. At any
time you can pause the reading with the
space bar, and either continue from this
point or any other place in the listing. To
help find your way around the listing,
program line numbers are added to what
you see on the screen, but the actual
program list is unaltered.
Amiga owners have
an unfair advantage
over most other
computer users - our
computer can talk
ProofReader scans the program list-
ing one line at a time looking for the
keywords or symbols stored in the array
SymbolSO- If one of these is found, it is
replaced by i ts phonetic equivalent from
the array Text$(). As an example, if a
program line reads
PSET(x,y)
the SAY TRANSLATES function
would read it as "set x y", mis-pro-
nouncing PSET and ignoring the brack-
ets and the comma. But when processed
by ProofReader, the line wouldbe trans-
lated to "pee set left bracket x comma
y right bracket", and would sound cor-
rect to the ear^
Here's how it works.
Load.Arrays:
ProofReader starts by setting up the
arrays Symbol$(), Text$() and
ProgLineSO- There are 24 key-words
and theirphonetic equivalents which are
loaded by the FOR-TO-NEXT loop into
SymbolSO and Text$() respectively. The
array ProglineSO is set to a dimension of
1000 to cater for a fairly large program,
but its size may be altered to suit either
smaller memory availability or larger
program size as required.
Be careful to enter the spaces and
punctuation marks correctly in the DATA
list They produce the correct stress.
Get.File:
Next the program of interest is read
into the array ProgLineSO, with i count-
ing the number of program lines.
ReadFile:
In the main program loop, j is the line
counter. The first program line is trans-
ferred to AS, then the line number and
the program lineareprin ted to the screen.
Apostrophe:
The first check is for an apostrophe at
the first position. If found, the line is a
REM statement and the apostrophe is
replaced by the word REM with an
exclamation mark, to produce a stress
on the spoken word.
Quote:
The next check is for quote marks,
indicating a text string. As quotes are
located, thequotecounteris incremented.
For each opening quote the counter is
odd and for each closing quote the coun-
ter is even. This controls the placement
of the words " quote! " or " ! un quote!
" as the case may be.
Main:
This is the heart of the program . Here
each program line is analysed and if any
of the key-words in the array SymbolSO
are found, they are replaced by the pho-
netic equivalent from the array TextSO ■
The FOR-TO-NEXT loop in Main:
ACAR 22
continued on page 24
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S
steps through the key words one at a time, searching with the
linek=INSTR(a$,Symbol$(x))
If the word is not found, k will equal and the next key word
is searched for, but if the word is found, the variable k points
to its position. The next line breaks the program line into two
sections - the part to the left (L$) and the part to the right (R$)
of the key-word. The key word is discarded and its phonetic
equivalent is inserted, then the line is re-assembled in its new
form. Next the search for the same key- word continues for the
whole line. Now the whole process repeats, looking for the
next key- word from the list until the process is complete.The
outcome is a complete program line with all key-words or
symbols replaced by theirphonetic equivalents. (If you insert
the line
PRINT a$
just before the label Say Trans: you will see as well as hear
the result). After the line is read, the quote counter is checked,
and if it is odd, the warning "no closing quote." is added.
Check:
Before completing the loop and continuing with the next
line, the space bar is checked to see if you want to pause the
program.
The "A" problem.
The SAY TRANSLATES function will pronounce the
letter "A" as "uh" if it is found alone or at the beginning of a
word it does not recognise. Unfortunately, A is used often as
a variable in many basic programs, hence the attention given
to it in ProofReader. This will make the variables sound
correct, but will affect any A-words encountered. I suggest
you try the program with and without the A processing. Put
a REM in front of the fourth DATA line, and change the
variable Number to 21 to see the effect. If you come up with
a clever algorithm to overcome the problem, send it in.
Over to you. If you want to add more words to the data list,
they should be added with their phonetic equivalents to the
DATA list, and the variable Number, in the Load.Arrays:
block and presently set to 24, changed to the new number of
data items.
ProofReader:REM by Leicester Hibbert
CLS
PRINT "The program you want to read must lirst be saved in ASCII tormat.
PRINT "See page 8-128 ol Amiga Basic Reference Manual tor details."
PRINT : PRINT The line numbers are inserted lor your convenience -"
PRINT "they are not part ol the program." : PRINT
PRINT "Use the space bar to stop the reading at the end ol the current line."
PRINT
Load Arrays:
number=24
DIM Symbol$(number),Text$(number),ProgLine$(1 000)
FOR x=1 TO number
READs$,t$
Symbol$(x)=s$ : Text$(x)=t$ """*
NEXTx
a$=L$+Texl$(x)+R$
GOTO parse
Not Found:
NEXTx
GetFile:
PRINTTress [RETURN) to list files"
INPUTor enter name ol file to read ";FileName$
IF FileName$=" THEN FILES : GOTO GetFile
OPEN FileNameS FOR INPUT AS #1
M
WHILE NOT EOF(1)
LINE INPUT #1,ProgLineS(i)
i=i+1
WEND
CLOSE #1
ReadFile:
1=0
loop:
j=j+1 : a$=ProgLine$(j)
PRINT j"";a$
Apostrophe:
k=INSTR(a$,"'") : IF k=1 THEN a$="rem! "+MID$(a$,2)
Quote:
count=0
QuoteLoop:
k=INSTR(a$,CHR$(34)) : IF k^OTHEN main
count=count+1'
insert$=" quote! "
IF count MOD 2 = THEN insert$="! un quote! *
L$=LEFT$(a$,k-1) : R$=MID$(a$,k+1) : a$=L$+insertS+R$
GOTO QuoteLoop
main:
FOR x=1 TO number
parse:
k=INSTR(a$,Symbol$(x))
IFk=OTHENNotFound
L$=LEFT$(a$,k-1) :R$=MID$(a$,k+LEN(Symbol$(x))) :
quote."
to
SayTrans:
SAY TRANSLATES (a$)
IF count MOD 2 = I THEN SAY TRANSLATE$("no closing
check:
i$=INKEY$ : IF i$<>" " THEN continue
COLOR 3,1 : INPUT"Enter new line number or <RETURN>
continue";ln
COLOR 1,0: PRINT
IF ln=0 THEN loop
ln=ln-1 : j=ln
continue:
IF j=i THEN END
GOTO loop
":"," cowlon rem! ",","," comma ","?"," question maik "
DATA " A "," to the power ol ","#"," number "."GOTO"," go to "
DATA"GOSUB","gosub"
DATA ",a",",ay "," a",",ay ","(a",",ay "
DATA V,", back slash ",".",", poinl ",":",", cowlon, "
DATA ";",", semicowlon, ","(",", left bracket, ',")",", right bracket, "
DATA "[",", left square, ","]",", right square, ","{",", left brace, "
DATA ")",", right brace, ','-',' mynus ","_"," under score "
DATA ■<>",' is not equal to ","PSET"," pee set, "
DATA
ACAR 24
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59.95
59.95
4935
59.95
49.95
79.95
69.95
59.95
29.95
59.95
61.95
61.95
49.95
Call
45.95
12.95
Puzznic - Addictive
59.95
Quadralien
69.95
Quadrel
59.95
Quartz
49.95
Railroad Tycoon
Realm of me Trolls
69.95
61.95
Return fo Genesis - Budge!
19.95
Rise of the Dragon - Huge!
6995
Roadwars
19.95
Robin Hood
69.95
Rock and Roll
49.95
Rodland
69.95
Rogue Trcpper
Ruff 4 Ready
64.95
39.95
S.D.I. • Ctnemaware
69.95
S.T.U.N. Runner -Special
35.00
Safari Guns
49.95
Scramble Spirits
49.95
Silent Service 2
89.95
Sim City
79.95
Sim Cify Graphics 1 - Ancient Cities
59.95
Sim City Graphics 2 - Future Cities
59.95
S.m City Terrain Editor
34.95
Sleeping Gods Lie
5935
Soliiaire - Vol 3 Accordion
39.95
Solifaire-Vpol 2 Calculation
39.95
Space Ace
89.95
Space Quest
44.95
Space Quest II
59.95
Space Quest III
59.95
Space Racer
49.95
Space School Simulator
39.95
Spy v Spy - Arctic Antics
16.95
Star Blaze - Budget
12.95
Star Breaker
49.95
Star Cursor J/s - 3 yr guarantee
59.95
Star Goose - Budget
12.95
Steel
49.95
Stun Runer
6935
Subbutec Soccer
59.95
Super Putty's Saga
59.95
Swap • New Puzzler
6935
Swiichblade II
6935
The Big One - Lotto Systems
19.95
The Plague
69.95
The Sentinel - old classic
19.95
Theme Park Mystery
5935
Thunderhawk - Great Heli Sim
69.95
Tnunderstrikes
5935
Tme Machine
59.95
Tom and the Ghost
6935
Toobin'
49.95
Tola) Eclipse
49.95
Tower of Babel
59.95
Tower Fra - Air Traffic Controller
5935
Turrican I!
69.95
Two Up - the Aussie Game
2935
TwyMe
16.95
Typhoon Thompson - Budget
U.M.S. II • Strategy
19.95
69.95
Ultima IV
7935
Ultima V
79.95
Vaxine
59.95
Veclor Championship Run
4935
vindicators
4935
Virtual Reality Compilation Pack
7935
Voyager
War Zone
59.95—
59.95
White Death Strategy
79.95
Wicked
59.95
Wings of Death
49.95
Wizards World
29.95
Worl Pack
79.95
World Championship Squash
Wrath of the Demon
59.95
89.95
Xenomorph
59.95
Xybots
45.95
PRODUCTIVITY
3D Professional (with Video)
Australian Graphic Atlas
A Talk 3 -Special
Ali in One - by Gold Disk
AMax - Special!!!
Amiga Vision • Special
AMOS
AMOS 3D
AMOS Compiler
Art Dept Pro Conversion Pack
Art Dept Professional V2
Audio Engineer S/ware/H/ware Pius
Boardmaster
Broadcast Backgrounds II
Broadcast Trfier V2 PAL - the best
Broadcast Tiller
CanDovl.5
Eril
Contact
Cross DOS -V4.0
CygnusEdPro
Deluxe Music Construction Set
Deluxe Paint IV NEW
Deluxe Help for DYPainl III
Deluxe Photo Lab (Posters Too)
Deluxe Print II
Deluxe Video III
Demo Maker - Red Sector/Abacus
Design Works
Desktop Budge!
DigiPaint 3
Dinosaurs - Turbo Silver Objects
Directory Opus Professional
D J Helper
Easy Ledgers (with job costing)
Easy Ledgers Accounting
Eckps • Pro DravuPage Clip Art
Eclips 2 - Clip Art
Elan Performer
Electric Thesaurus
Electronic Debtors System
Enunciator
Flashback - HD backup
GFA BASIC V3.0
Gold Disk Type Fonts
Goospoii 2
G.P. Term • Terminal Program
Ham II Up -Works with DPaim
Headline Fonts 1
Headline Fonts 2
Headline Fonts Sub
HiSofl Extended Library
Home Builders CAD
Hyperbook
Hyper Helpers
Imagine • Hot Raytracing
Imagine Companion Book
Interchange S/V
Kara Anim Fonts
Kara Fonfs - Various Avaiiable
Kara Sfaifiekfs
KDV- Kit Da Virus
lattice CV5.1
Unkword French
Linkword German
Unkwora Italian
MAC-2-DOS
MaxiplanPlusv2.0
Mediaslallon-D'View 4/Elan Perl. D'Paint 3
Microfiche Filer Plus
Moviesetfer - ba an Eric Schwartz!
Ophcai Dreams
Outline Fonts for Pro Page
Pagesetter II
Pageslream Fonts Vol 1.1
Pagestream V2.0
PeScan Press - great for the kids
Photon Paint V2 - Ham Painl
Photon Painl Surfaces 1 S 2
Pixel 3D
Pixmate
Printmaster Art Gallery 1
Postdriver - Postscript driver
Printmaster Plus
Pro Video Fonts (sef 2)
Pro Video Posl
Professional Draw V2.Q
Prof Page - Structured Clip Art
Prof Page Templates
Professional Page V2 + Video
Professional CTp Art vol 1
Proper Grammar
Prowrite V3.2 POSTSCRIPTI
Prowrite ■ German Dictionary
Prowrite • Profonts 1 (extra fonts)
Prowrite - Profonts 2 (extra fonts)
Quarterback (HD backup)
Quarterback Tools
Real 3D Professional
Rhyming Notebook
Scala
Scene Generator
Sculp; Animate 3D scenes/objects
350.00
69.95
69.95
99.95
149.95
150.00
125.00
79.95
69 95
119.95
299.00
359.00
119.00
59.00
375.00
5935
179.95
125.00
95.95
59.95
64.95
129.95
99.00
175.00
34.95
99.00
9935
99.95
6935
129.95
49.95
135.00
49.95
59.95
59.95
499.00
375.00
139.00
139.95
69.95
69.95
299.00
34.95
7935
159.00
79.95
44.95
99.00
69.95
99.00
99.00
99.00
6935
299.00
139.95
79.95
399.00
49.95
79.95
79.95
Call
7935
24.95
399.00
59.95
69.95
59.95
189.00
9935
275.00
199.00
95.00
12935
29.95
269.00
179.95
59.95
299.00
16935
199.00
29.95
99.95
99.95
59.95
149.00
399.00
275.00
7935
7935
399.00
59.95
129.95
199.95
49.95
4935
49.95
99.00
99.00
675.00
54.95
499.00
74.95
24.95
49.95
Snowmaker
399.00
Softclips vol II -people
109.95
Spritz Painl Prog
99.95
Superback
99.95
Super DJ
34.95
System 3 (Accounts)
129.00
The Amiga Graphics Starter Kit
The An Department
119.00
129.00
"he Office • Gold Disk
399.00
Transwnte
95.00
TV TExt Professional
259.00
Ultra Card Plus
145.M
Video Tools
299.00
Vidi-Chrome - Colour (or Vidi
59.95
Vintage Aircraft - Turbo Silver
49.95
Vista
149.95
Vista Pro
179.95
Vista Scapes - California I
12935
Vista Scapes • Valley Man'nens (Mars)
129.95
Vista Scapes - Yomserrwte Valey
Watt Disney Animation Studio - Hot
Wordsworth
89.95
249.00
299.00
MUSIC
Advanced MIDI AMIGA sampler (AMAS)
22035
Audio Engineer Jun
189.00
Audio Enqineer Software
8935
Audio Engineer Plus (Stereo Hware)
Bars and Pipes
Can
199.00
Bars and Pipes Professional
399.00
Bars and Pipes Extra Modules
Deluxe Music Construction Set
Call
99.95
Dr. l"s Copyist Apprentice
Dr. Ts Copyist DTP
Dr. T's Midi Rec Studio
149.00
449.00
10935
Dr. Ts Tiger Cub
119.00
Harmom
149.95
Kawai Fun Lab Keyboard - 100 off
799.00
Keyboard Editors
Call
Midi Magic
299.00
Midi Interlace
89.95
Music X
299.00
Music X Junior
Call
Perfect Sound 3.0
199.00
Sonic 2.0 Music
99.00
XoR
299.00
Setting The Record Straight
Workbench 2.04 was to sell for
$99. Unexpectedly, it turned
out to be $149.95. I think it's
important our loyal customers
understand why this happened.
At the last minute,
Commodore decided to ship
the upgrade by plane rather
than boat. If nothing else, this
fact alone assured a price
increase.
However, even at the new
price, Workbench 2.04 is top
value. The new version
includes a mammoth manual
which completely replaces all
existing documentation. We
would have loved to sell this
much improved operating
system at $99. but our cost
price ended up above the
original expected retail price.
So, we were really stuck with
the new higher price or not
buying them in at all. We
endeavoured to fill back orders
as fairly as possible, however
there is still a big shortage of
slock. Hopefully that will have
changed by the time you read
this!
-Karen
Ph: 02 - 979 5833
Fax: 02 - 979 6629
#-& NEW • PowerMonger • Civilization • Lemmings Data Disk • NEW «r
CDTV TITLES
A Bun lor Barney Bear 6995
Advanced Miliary Systems - encyclopeirja 59.95
Ait Dogs Go To Heaven -kids colouring 69.95
BasketBall- Great Sports game 69.95
"Battle Chess • Animated Chess Call
BatUestorm- Arcade style shoot-em-up 59.95
Case of Ihe Cautious Condor 69.95
CO Remix -become your own DJ 69.95
Eyes oi the EsQle - rolepiaying adv 69.95
Falcon F!6 Flight simulator 99.95
Fred Fish on CD- 530 disis+Sub Offer 99.95
Garden Fax -Care lor Over 400 Varieties 69.95
Hound ol Ihe Baskervllles- Sherlock 69.95
lllust. American Heritage Encyclopedid 99.95
Illustrated Bible 69.95
Illustrated Works ol Shaespeare 69.95
Karaoke disks- Great lamily fun 69.95
learn French with Asterix 79.97
Lemmings - Ind Planolside Demo 79.95
Mind Run -Cerebral Games 69.95
Music Maker • Music Maker and Trivia 79.95
My Paint- Paint Program for Kids 59.95
"Ninja High School Comic lor teens Call
Paper Bag Princess - Interactive story Call
Psycho Wei- Interactive action/mystery 79.95
"Road to Final Four Call
Sim City- Rewritten specially lor CDTV Cat
Spirit of Excalirxir 69.95
Super Games Pack - 3 great games 59.95
"Team Yankee - Tank Simulator Call
Timetable o! Business 79.95
Timetable of science 79.95
The N-ghtBeloreXMAS- Interactive 69.95
Thomas Snowsuit - Interactive Story 69.95
Women in Motion -Great lor animators 69.95
World Vista -Atlas and asstd info Call
Wrath ol the Demon -Arcade Adventure 69.95
Xenon II - Inc. 12 music tracks ! 79.95
CDTV Keyboard 225.00
' ' denotes products ate not in stock attmecl
printing, but are expected any day.
EDUCATION
Adventures in Maths 49.95
Aesop's Fables - Unicom 3495
Algebra 69.95
Aluebio Vol I High School
Algebra Vol II High School
Alphabet Preschool
Anthmetic
Arithmetic High School
Assoc*
Associated - Word Association Age 3-8
At the Zoo
'Australian Animals Cotounng Book
Bambinos Jigsaw Puzzle Age 3-8
Basic Grammer Age 7 & up
Belter Spelling 8 lo adull
Calculus
Comic Setter Art Disks - Funny Figures
Come Setter Art Disks - Super Heroes
Comic Seller Art Disks - Science Fiction
Cross Out the Intruder Age 3-8
49.95
69.95
69.95
39.95
39.95
39.95
29.95
Decimal Dungeon Age 5 8 up
Dinosaur Discovery Kit
Discover Alphabet Age 6 8 up
Discover Chemislry Age 12 8 up
Discover Maths Age 10 8 up
Discover Numers Age 6 8 up
Discovery 2.0
Discovery Geography expansion disk
Discovery HSiory Grade 9-12
Discovery Malhs Master Disk Grade 1 - 7
Discovery science exp. disk Grade 9-12
Oiscovery Social Studies exp. disk 9 - 12
Discovery Spell Master Disk Grade 1 • 7
Discovery Trivia 1 exp. disk various
Discovery Trivia 2 expansion disk various
EZ-Grade (Teachers Gradeoook) Tchers
First Letters and Words
Flowers of Crystal
Fraction Action
Fun School 2 Under 6
FunSchool2Age6-8
Fun School 2 Over 8
Fun School 3 Under 5
FunSchool3Aoe5-7
Fun School 3 Over 7
Hooray for Henrietta
'InteHitype- " Special "
introducing Maps
Katies Farm
Kids Collection Age 3 - 7
Kids Talk 5 -12
Kinderama Preschool - 6
Learning the Alphabet
Let's Spell at Home
Let's Spell at Ihe Shops
Let's Spell Oul 8 About
Little Red Hen
McGee Lower Pnmary
MagcMath4-8
39.95
39.95
39.95
39.95
59.95
69.95
54.95
39.95
39.95
39.95
39.95
59.95
29.95
29.95
59.95
29.95
29.95
59.95
29.95
29.95
89.95
54.95
49.95
49.95
49.95
49.95
49.95
49.95
59.95
34.95
89.95
59.95
59.95
54.95
69.95
49.95
3495
59.95
49.95
Match II
Match A Magician
Math Blaster Plus - Pnmary
Math Mania 8 -12
Math Talk
Math Wizard Age 5 - 10
Math Vision
Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Awd Win
Medal Winner
Memorise Age 3 • 8
Mixed Up Mother Goose
'Nallons of the World
Pianel Probe
Probability High School
Puzzie Story Book
Read A Rama Age 5 SUp
Read N Rhyme
Reading 8 Typing Age 3-6
Robot Readers - Aesops Fables
Robot Readers - The Little Red Hen 4-8
Robol Readers - The Three Bears 4- 8
Robot Readers - The Three Little Pigs 4-8
Robot Readers - The Ugly Duckling 4-8
Roddy 8 MasUco II
Sesame Street - Letters for You
Sesame Street - Numbers Count
Sesame Street - Opposites Attract
Smooth Talker
Space Math Age 8 8 up
Spell Book Age 4-6
Spell Book Age 7 Sup
Spellbound Primary
Speller Bee
Sum-it Mountain
Sunnyside Up
Tales of the Arabian Nights Age 8 - 12
Talking Colounng Book Pre-School
The Birds 8 the Bees - sex education 7-12
Things to do with Numbers Primary
Things to do with Words Pnmary
Three Bears 5-10
Trigonometry High School
True Statistics
Uncle D's Consoundration
Where in the World in Carmen SanDiego
Where in Time in Carmen SanDiego-
Where in Europe Is Carmen SanDieao
Where in the USA is Carmen SanDiego
World Alias
49.95
4995
69.95
59.95
49.95
69.95
199.00
69.95
49.95
39.95
49.95
79.95
49.95
59.95
6995
54.95
69.95
69.95
39.95
34.95
34.95
34.95
34.95
34.95
39.95
49.95
4995
49.95
54.95
39.95
39.95
39.95
59.95
54.95
49.95
49.95
69.95
49.95
39.95
39.95
39.95
49.95
69.95
69.95
39.95
79.95
79.95
84.95
HARDWARE &
ACCESSORIES
Amiga 500 Video Packs 1399
Amiga 500 Video Add On Packs 499
Amloa 500 Music Packs 199
Amirs 500 Starter Kit- Video Tutor tsjw 799
Amiga A590 Hard Drive Call
Amiga A590 Hard Drive with 2mb RAM Call
Amiga A501 RAM Expansion 8 Clock 99
Roctec Slimline Drive 1 39
Amiga 2000 Special price CALL
Amiga 3000's 100mb or 40mb Can
Amiga 500 Deluxe Kit Call
Supra 8mb RAM Board w(2mb 399.00
Progressive 68040t8mb RAM
-buy a dozen at this price 3499
Supraram 20000.2.4,$ or 8mb Ram Call
Denise Mover -Additional Video Slot 199
SyQuest 44 mbremovabledtcartridge 1129
SyQuest 88 mb remov, case, p/s, fan 1799
1960 Hi-res Monitor (A3000 8 Vers2.0) Call
Amiga 200072500S3000 internal Genlock 399
Electronic Design Genlock Pal Cat
Neriki Desktop Genlock VHSSVHS 1199
VldtekScanlockGentockVHSiSVHS 1699
Vidtek VidooMasler Genlock & Splitter 2395
A2000ATBridgeboaid8 51Wdrive 876
A2000XTBridgeboard8 5Wdrive 475
A500 XT Card with 512K Clock 8 DOS 4.1 699
Ver 2.0 Enhancer Kit 14995
Keyboard Cover Skins lor Amiga 2000 39.95
Keyboard Cover Skins lor Amiga 500 29.95
Joystick Extension Cable 10.95
Mouse/Joystick Adaptor - back in stock 54.95
DigiView/Printer Switch Box 8 Cable 69.95
Harris Hilek Filler Screen (reduces flicker) 39.95
Prism Colour Splitter 8 Extra Cable 499
VWi Amiga Frame Grabber B/W 399
BW Video Camera (The Old Way!) 699
Sharp JX-100 Colour Scanner 1495
Kurta Graphics Tablet (sAvare EXTRA) 799
KawaiFunlab Keyboard 8 Midi l/Tace 799
NewCanon ION ISVHS) Still Video Cam. 1375
A2320 De-lnlerlacer Card 375
PRINTERS
Commodore 12309oinPrinterEW( 325.00
Citizen 2D0GX Colour 9 Pin Printer 475.00
Star LC24-200 Colour 24 Pin Printer 750.00
Citizen CSX-1 40 Colour 24 Pin Printer" 699.00
Canon BJlOe Bubble Jet
EPSON LQ400 24 Pin BW primer
* AS printers come iwfn free c
Latest &
Greatest
Formula One Grand Prix
Devpac III
FireTeam 2000-in stock
Mega-Lo-Mania
Willy Beamish-in stock
Red Baron-in stock
Final Fight
First Samurai
Chessmaster 3000
Fighter Duel-in stock
THANKS
A big thank you to Bill
at Channel 1 and
Faye at Total Media for
their extremely helpful
and professional
attitude while planning
our first outing in T.V
ad land. Talk about
smoothing the way
and making you feel at
ease! You've got our
vote guys. Thanks also
to John Hollands and
Chris Young. True pros.
GVP
Authorised GVP
Dealer. We carry the
full range of GVP
products and will
match any advertised
prices.
NEWS 'N' STUFF
Catch the new computer show
on Sydney radio station 2GB
where we may or may not be
advertising by the time this hits
the stands. Could be interesting.
1 ] .00 am Saturday hosted by
Malcolm T Elliot
Chips
Galore!
1MB Agnus $59.95
2MB Agnus $69.95
Super Denise $59.95
Kickstart1.3 $34.95
RAM Chips Cheap
ORDER FORM
Name: Ph:
Address:
. Post Code:
Cheque U Bank Card n Master Card □ VisaD
air. Date
30D
Card Number
Signature
Allow 14 days delivery • Add S3.00 Software postage • Hardware call for
arrangements • All prices subject to change
DO NOT SEND CASH TOTAL
Computer Care
Parti
Welcome to the first of a new series on caring for your
home computer. This series is the result of extensive
research and study of ways to keep your computer
system in top operating order with help from Kevan
Fitzakerley.
Each part will contain information
on how you can perform a pre-
ventative maintenance program
without the need for any technical know-
how.
You will soon realise as you read the
various chapters, the importance of read-
ing all the relevant books and manuals
that are included when you purchase
computer equipment.
Unpacking
Mostpeople who buy computers rush
home with their purchase, rip open the
box and throw aside the packaging, in-
struction manuals and so on. They at-
tempt to put everything together and if
the plugs fit the sockets, and when the
power is turned on, if the light comes, on
they assume that everything is right.
Right? Wrong!
This initial stage of setting up is
probably the most important. The pack-
aging is designed to protect the hard-
ware during transit, so it is important to
keep this packaging just in case you
need to move any or all of the equipment
over any great distance.
The manuals that come with the vari-
ous types of hardware are there for your
benefit. These manuals explain how to
correctly set up each part of the compu-
ter system. And as the saying goes:
"When all else fails, read the instruc-
tions".
Also included are the warranty or
guarantee cards, you should read these
cards and post away any forms that need
to be sent, to register your purchase with
the manufacturer. Inmostcasesyou will
find that there is an authorised repair
agent in or close by where you live.
What If It Doesn't
Work?
With die number of Amiga comput-
ers being sold today it is likely that some
of these machines may be faulty at the
time of purchase. If it happens that you
are unfortunate enough to receive a
machine that doesn'tperformasitshould,
what do you do? Rush back to the store
where you purchased it and abuse the
salesperson? Phone Commodore and
abuse the receptionist?
What you need to do is completely
read the instructions and follow the steps
set out in the manuals, because most
problems arise from not fully under-
standing how to connect everything to-
gether.
If you have followed the instructions
completely and your Amiga still doesn't
perform, you should contact the store
where you made your purchase and
explain exactly the problems you are
having and remember, stay calm.
The staff of these stores are in most
cases trained to help and give advice, so
give them a chance to rectify the situa-
tion. In most cases if a machine is faulty
at the time of purchase the store will
normally exchange the item for you.
If on the other hand you have owned
your Amiga for aperiod of twelve months
or more, it is time, to think of giving it a
service. Few things made today last any
longer than 1-2 years without giving
some sort of trouble. It is possible to
avoid costly repairs and loss of time
being without your Amiga by following
a few basic guide linesperforming regu-
lar preventive maintenance.
After Warranty
Service
You can take the machine to an au-
thorised service centre for repair or you
can do it yourself.
Computers of any brand are a highly
sophisticated piece of equipment and
when you start fooling around with the
internals of the machine you automati-
cally void all warranties.
In your operating manual, you will
find a section on caring for your Amiga
and associated items, like software stor-
age, dust and smoke hazards and so on.
By performing the items listed in this
section of your operating manual you
willfindthatyourmachineandsoftware
will operate well for longer.
Apart from the operating manual in-
structions on caring for your Amiga,
there are other things you can do to keep
your computer in top operating order.
Understanding Your
Amiga - Start Up
The Amiga is a great home and small
business computer, but it is only as good
as the operator and Uic software pro-
vided for it.
When you switch on the Amiga you
are greeted with a hand holding a disk,
this symbol simply means the computer
is asking for a disk to be inserted in the
drive. No special commands are re-
quired, because once the disk (providing
it is bootable) is inserted in the drive
everything is done automatically for
you and the program or part of it is
loaded into die computer's memory.
It is important for you to understand
WHY and HOW these things happen
and by understanding why and how
things operate, you will obtain a general
knowledge of various parts of the Amiga
so as to be able to perform preventative
maintenance and be aware of possible
troublespots.
ACAR 28
Room For Failure
Any type of internal electronic or mechanical repairs or
modification, unless you have been trained in this area, should
be left to a qualified person to perform.
Most mechanical failures occur from wear and tear on the
moving parts, like on/off switches and drive-heads. Failure of
these kinds cannot be avoided, but they can be contained in
various ways.
Electronic failures rarely happen This does not mean that
they don't happen, but if they do they usually happen within
the first 24 hours of use, and it is usually attributed to electrical
current and heat build up. But there are external sources that
can cause you problems, like dampness, power surges, mag-
netic fields, overheating and static electricity, etc.
Software failure can occur by various means. For instance,
leaving disks exposed to magnetic fields, or direct sunlight,
dustand liquids are justa few examples. They do happen and
can cause the software to fail to operate as it should due to
damage to the media on which the software is stored.
Every piece of computer hardware that you buy
comes with its own set of instructions and operating
guide, and within these pages there will normally be
a section on how to care for each particular piece.
A typical Amiga computer system could include
the following pieces of equipment.
1. KEYBOARD, 2. MONITOR, 3. EXTERNAL
DRIVE, 4. HARD DRIVE, 5. SOFTWARE
Themain area of preventativemaintenance should
be directed to the software or the electronic media on
which most programs are stored (eg. floppy disks or
hard drives). This is the easiest area to begin with and
it may be surprising to know it is also the most
neglected area of computer care.
Once software is damaged, it is difficult to deter-
mine, when problems arise, whether it is a software
or a hardware failure, so it is extremely important to
protect your software before serious defects happen.
Your software can be damaged by any of the
following examples.
1. HEAT & HUMIDITY, 2. GREASE, 3. OIL, 4.
STATIC, 5. MAGNETIC FIELDS, 6. DUST, 7.
DIRTY DRIVE HEADS, 8. SMOKE, 9.
SCRATCHES ON THE DISK SURFACE, And of
course VIRUSES.
What You Can Do
Let's have a look at ways you can keep your
software in good order. If you follow these steps you
can be sure to minimize any problems.
1. Keep software disks away from extreme heat
and try to store them in an area where the temperature
doesn't change too much.
2. Maintain a proper level of humidity.
3. Your fingers contain natural oils, so avoid touching the
disk surface at all costs.
4. Keep disks away from stereo speakers and any type of
magnetic fields.
5. Your disks should be stored in dust-proof containers.
6. Keep all liquids far away from your disks, many a disk
has been ruined by coffee being spilt on it.
7. Avoid areas where your disks could be subjected to heavy
smoke or other airborne pollutants.
8. If your drive-heads are dirty they can scratch the surface
of the disk, so you should invest in agood quality head cleaning
disk or something of a similar nature. PLEASE NOTE: Disk
heads should only be cleaned when needed.
9. Protect your software from Viruses. There are many
commercial and Public Domain virus checkers around to
remove viruses. The easiest way to avoid catching a virus is
to make sure that your disks are write-prolected before you
insert them in the disk-drive.
If you have any areas of computer care you would like to
see covered, please write to me care of the magazine. Until
next issue, have a trouble free month.
Customer Service
1162 Hay Si, West Perth, WA 6005
Tel (09) 481 0555 FAX (09) 426 1444
01 NOVEMBER 1991
Australian Distributor for
POWER COMPUTING (UK)
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AT Once IBM Emulator $445
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Flicker Free Video S555
A500 Internal 20Mb HDD $732
A500 Internal 40Mb HDD $867
A500 Internal 60Mb HDD $1,107
A500 Internal 80Mb HDD S1299
ICD Adspeed Amiga $393
Amiga Anli Click Power Drive
S181
Dual Floppy Drive
$293
Golden Image Mouse
S55
Golden Image Trackball
$98
Blitz Amiga Copier
S71
Amiga 500 Internal FDD
S131
Anli-Click Board
$47
Midi interface
$54
Prima 52Mb Internal
$673
Prima 105Mb Internal
$966
Shuffle Board
$55
ICD Adspeed
$393
Slimline 40Mb Hard Disk
$712
Slimline 45Mb Hard Disk
$764
Slimline 52Mb Hard Drive
$787
Slimline 105Mb Hard Drive
$1,079
AdRam505(0-512k)Ok
$51
AdRam540(0-4Mb)Ok
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AdRam 560D (2Mb)
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items will be delivered overnight at die appropriate freight charges. Above prices do not include Freight and
installation & prices are subject lo change without noulicalioti.
ACAR 29
«'
o* V?*"**.
Andy's Jib*
by Andrew Leniart
Welcome back to my humble At-
tic. This month's column has
been devoted to answering the
many queries that you all have sent in
over the last few months.
Note that if you don't see your own
letter in these pages it does not necessar-
ily mean that your query has not been, or
will not be answered. I endeavour to
answer all readers' questions, but some-
times it's just plain easier and takes less
space to do it with a general reply to the
same query from three or four different
readers. So keep the feedback coming.
The column is written with you in mind
so be sure to keep telling us what it is you
want to hear. The address to write to is:
Andrew Leniart, Andy's Attic, P.O.
Box 1335, Hoppers Crossing Vic 3030.
Okay, now on to your letters.
Problems with Stack
B. Litchfield of Ultimo in NSW
writes:
"Dear Andrew, I do not know whether
it is me or not but a few of your tutorial
notes just don't seem to operate when
executed the way you set it down.
"One particular problem I'm having
sorting out is your example on setting
the stack size in a shell. I have tried every
conceivable combination in my startup-
sequence with nil results. I'vclriedStack
10000, stack 10000 STACK 10000 and
so on. Each time I check the size in Shell
it comes up at 4000. Can you inform me
of what is the correct form of entering a
change of stack size in the startup. Sin-
cerely, B.Litchfield."
REPLY: Okay, first of all, it makes
no difference whether you enter any Cli
command in upper, lower ormixed case.
Stack, STACK or StAcK will all work
equally well.
Where your problem lies is that you
are changing the stack size in the startup-
sequence Cli only and not in the Shell
which you are firing up later on. Issuing
the command Stack 10000 in your
Startup-Sequence will set the stack size
for 'that particular' Cli to 10000. How-
ever that is only useful if you are launch-
ing a program from within your startup-
sequence that requires a larger stack
size.
To get a stack size of 10000 in your
Shell, then what you need to do is edit
the Shell-Startup file located in your V
directory. Using your favourite text edi-
tor, edit this file. Make a blank line at the
very top of it and enter STACK 10000.
Each time you fire up a shell, it looks at
the contents of this file and executes the
commands within it for the Shell which
you are using. My Shell-Startup file
looks like this ...
Stack 10000
Prompt "%N.%S> " alias lo endcli alias
Icon Changelcon~~~
Type alias CDT CD DH2: alias A CD
DH1:ACAR/Cli-Tutes alias W WC -W Cli-
Tute18 alias car dh2:3
Line 1 sets the stack size for the shell
to 10000.
Line 2 gives me a prompt that tells me
which directory I am in.
Line 3 is an alias set up to close a shell
simply by pressing lo as I got tired of
typing endcli. The rest are other alias'
that 1 have set up to make life a bit easier
for myself with various PD utilities that
I often use.
Note that if you choose to use the
above example in your shell-startup file,
you should only include the first three
lines. The rest will be useless to you.
Hope that helps clear things up a bit.
DiskDoctor
Simon Strudwick of Morphett Vale
in SA writes the Attic for solutions to
these complaints and comments.
"Andy, I am writing about a small
problem I have with the Cli when using
DiskDoctor. The program runs through
alright but sometimes comes up with a
message like "xxx now unreadable"
where xxxx is a number usually in the
high 900 up to about 1100. What does
this mean?
"Also, about the DirUtils you told
about, you said that DiskMaster was a
commercial program. But DiskMaster
V3.0 says that it's fully public domain.
I don't know if it is the original settings
or if it's been changed, but if it isn't PD,
could you please print a reply so I can
erase it. Hope you can help."
REPLY: The message that
DiskDoctor is giving you is simply ad-
vising you that DiskDoctor has found a
block (Number xxxx) on the disk which
is corrupt to the stage where it is no
longer readable. This is an informative
message only to advise you that the
information that was contained in that
block cannot be recovered.
It is possible that the disk that you are
doctoring will now be unusable with the
Amiga once DiskDoctor has finished
with it. Ie: If there is a Hard Error on the
disk. If that's the case, read on down
below where this topic is gone into in a
bit of depth.
In regards to DiskMaster V3.0, while
it is possible that someone has written a
ACAR 30
continued on page 32
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directory utility andnamedilDiskMaster
V3.0 and made it public domain, it is
highly unlikely. Usually, what these
things consist of are hacked versions of
commercial software where someone
has hacked into the code of a commer-
cial program and changed a few things
around to make the product appear as
though it is public domain. With some of
the fancy Hex editors freely available in
the PD libraries, this practice unfortu-
nately is not all that hard to do and
happens quite frequently. Without see-
ing the software concerned, it's impos-
sible for me to tell you for sure whether
you have an illegal copy of DiskMasier.
Your best bet would be to go to a local
reputable software distributor, ask them
to have a look at the disk and ask their
advice. To be on the safe side, use
another directory utility until you're sure.
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KAORedSpot (Boxed 10) DS/DD $9.95
KAO RedSpot cotoumD Disks 50 pk $49.95
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Cart PhonWMaUooterufM add 6tt "Add poMsflf and torillno
Available from the following dealers:
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Amiga Clocks
Rod Gaal of Waitarain NSW had this
to say in his last letter.
"Dear Andrew, Something you may
be able to explain to me in simple
beginner's terms and that is, is it possi-
ble to program aclock into the computer
so that when I boot up from die Hard
disk, the time shows up continuously up
in theright hand comer? There may be
others out there in computer land that
would benefit from your answer, so I
was hoping thatperhaps you could cover
it in your monthly column.
"Many thanks, Rod."
REPLY: Sure thing. As long as you
have a battery backed up clock in your
Amiga, then it's a piece of cake.
You should have a clock in the Utili-
ties drawer of your 1 .3 Workbench which
we can use to do the job. However, you
will first need to obtain a little public
domain program called RunBack by
MicroSmiths Inc from one of the PD
libraries advertised in each issue of
ACAR if you don' t already have it The
reason for this is that the clock program
supplied with Workbench 1.3 does not
detach itself from the Cli, therefore will
not allow your startup-sequence Cli to
close once you run it from there. That's
where runback comes in handy.
A handy little proggy that allows
programs like this one to be run as
background tasks which everyone should
have acopy of in the C directory of their
workbench. Once you have placed a
copy of RunBack in your C directory, do
the following..
1 . Open up a Cli and type
"ED S:Startup-Sequence"
This will fire up ED, the resident
workbench text editor and load your
startup-sequence ready to be edited.
2. Using your arrow keys, move the
cursor down till it's sitting on the last
line of the script file which should read
"Endcli >Nil" or similar. Tap the return
key to create a blank line above this
command.
3. Move your cursor back up to this
blank line and type in the following
command ~-
Runback Sys:Utilities/CL0CK DIG-
ITAL2=400,0 12H0UR
4. Once that' s done, save the changes
by pressing the ESCape key first fol-
lowed by X and press return. This will
cause ED to save the changes and exit
back to the CLI you started him from.
5. That's it! Give the Amy the 'ol
three fingered salute, (reboot) and you
should end up with a digital clock in the
top right corner, just a litde to the left so
as nottocover up the Workbench screen's
front and back gadgets.
If all does not go well, make sure you
entered the command exacdy as shown
and check for typing errors. Ijusttriedil
here and it worked fine. If you're not
happy with the position Uiat the clock
appears in, experiment with the 400 and
parameters in the above example.
These are the X and Y parameters which
tell the Amiga where on screen you want
the clock to be.
There are a couple of other options
you might like to try. eg:
CLOCK DIGITAL2=400,0 24HOUR
SECONDS
The above will display the time in a
24 hour format just like in the Army and
will also display the seconds ticking by
while,CLOCK DIGITAL 2=400, 24
HOUR SECONDS DATE will make the
clock display cycle between the time
and the date every couple of seconds.
To get a gust of the full arguments
available with Clock, just type CLOCK
? in a shell.
Experiment with it. Life is too short.
Try everything!
What's Binary?
Judging from recent mail, it seems a
few of you have gotten a hide confused
when looking through a PD catalogue of
say the Fish collection and wondered
what was meant by the term "Binary
Only" at the end of the descriptions of
programs. Whenever you see "Binary
only" referenced in regards to a disk or
a particular program, all it means is this:
When a program is written in "C" or
similar, it is usually compiled with a
special compiler which turns the source
code (or words) of the program into
"Binary". Ic: The executable program.
This will not stop you from using the
program or disk. As a matter of fact, it
ACAR 32
continued on page 34
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actually gives you the means to use it.
So when you see "Binary Only" writ-
ten in the catalogue about a particular
disk or program, it simply means that the
disk only contains the executable part of
the program (the actual game, utility or
whatever) and not the source code.
Normally, PD programmers include
the source code of their programs in the
public domain so that other budding
programmers learning the ropescan look
at how the program was written and
learn how particular things are achieved.
Others however prefer to keep their
programming secrets to themselves and
do not include the source code for others
to look at and decide to just release the
program itself into the public domain.
This is when you will see "Binary Only"
written in the catalogue.
Hope that clears up the confusion.
Floppy Disks - Hard
Errors
A few readers wrote in a while back
with questions like, what' s a floppy disk
and how does it work? Why do some of
my disks come up with Hard Errors and
how can I fix them.
If you were one of the people that
wrote in with questions of this nature,
then read on.
What's a Floppy disk?
Imagine a computer diskette as just
like a record that you would play on your
phonograph or stereo. If you pulled a
floppy apart, you would see that the
inside of it actually looks very similar to
a normal record or CD, except for the
fact that it's much smaller and thinner.
Floppy disks work in much the same
way as a record does. The main differ-
ence between the two is that floppy disks
can contain a lot more info than a record
can and can be written to by our Amiga.
Information is stored in the grooves
visible on the floppy disk surface and the
Amiga disk drive heads read and write
information to those grooves (or tracks)
via special heads that were designed for
that purpose.
So much for what they are and how
they work. But what of the errors?
What's a Hard Error?
Ok, let' s look back to our phonograph
records to try and explain this one.
We'll assume for argument's sake
that we have a great single by the famous
Frank Sinatra and it has a scratch on it
because we disliked the song so much
that we kicked the stereo while the song
was playing.
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comprising
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SAMPLE DISK
1 great games/programs
HINTS AND TIPS DISK
1 .5 Megabytes of tints/tips
TUTORIAL DISK
Amiga Tutor/DOS Helper
GAMES DISK
7 fantastic games
utility disk
5 Incredible Unities
ONLY $19.85
FUNNIES PACK
II you're a bit strapped lor ca3h,
then why not try our Fumes Pack.
Well send our 2 Catalogue disks
wife a FREE game and VIRUS
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Our very own JOKIN' AROUND
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We carry the popiiar
FISH, FAUG, TOPIK, AMOS,
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PLUS
Our own collections of ALPHA
SLATENIGHTER disks.
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AMOS risks $3.00 per disk.
We also have a oollecSon of
DISK PACKS relating to specific
subjects will several disks in
each peck.
EG EDUCATION,
HAM RADIO, MUSIC.
GAMBLING, ANIMATION,
BUSINESS, PICTURES etc.
BEST OF P.P.
This is a series ol disks Ural we
have been steaddy compiling
for the past two years. There
are presently over 650 of tiese,
all sell booting will aO required
files end categories on our
Catalogue Disks.
A selection of some of our Best
of P.D. disks is shown in the
next column
LEEJAN ENTERPRISES
489 Marion Road,
Prympton Soufi, SA. 5038.
Tel (08) 371 2655
MAILORDER
LEEJAN ENTERPRISES
P.O. Box 66,
HappyVaIey,SAS159
TRADING HOURS
Tuesday to Sakjrday
10.30am - 4.30pm
Catalogue Disks $3
2 disk set
Chequo' Money Order
BankCard ' MasterCard ■ Visa
17
31
33
60
67
72
79
SELECTION OF
BEST OF P.P. $2.95 ea
13 CRIBBAGE
TrC-TAC-TOE
WHEEL OF FORTUNE
BACKGAMMON
CHESS
POWERPACKER
VOEO POCKER
MONOPOLY
BLACKJACK
83 WORDSCRAMBLE
89 HOUSE INVENTORY
100 SPELLING
102 MATH
112 CONCENTRATION
129 BIORHYTHM
115 TRIVIA QUIZ
144 SKETCHPAD
161 POLYDRAW
163 MOONBASE
ISO OIETAD
181 HYPERBASE
229 PCOPY
260 SNAKEPIT
261 STOCKBROKER
270 TEXTPUJS
275 SOLAR SYSTEM
318 DEFENDER
323 GERMAN TUTOR
327 CHECKERS
331 STUD POKER
333 MISSILE COMMAND
345 BUDGET
362 TYPNG TUTOR
365 DISKMASTERV3
366 LCD CALCULATOR
370 CRAYONPAUT
371 SCRABBLE
375 BODYPARTS
385 CHINESE TRIANGLE
386 WORD PUZZLE
409 JEOPARD
416 LANDSCAPE
433 BL1TZC0PY
435 TETRACOPY
448 SPECTRUM EMULATOR
508 DOMINOES
522 CHINESE CHECKERS
516 JUMPER (FROGGER)
521 ATARI ST EMULATOR
Back to School
Specials
Amiga Hardware
A2000 Base $995
A2000/40H/D $1795
A500 PC Pack $795
External Drive $129
512k Ram Upgrades $79
2Mb Ram Upgrades $379
4Mb Ram Upgrades $539
All GVP Products Call
Miracle Keyboard $699
Amiga Kickstart
Switches from 39.95
Printers
Epson LX-400 $249
Star LC10 Colour $360
StarLC24-200CL $650
Amiga Software
Workbench 2.0 $149
ProWritev3.2 $199
Easy Ledgers $369
3D Professional $329
Imagine $429
Design 3D $89
Superbase Pro V4 $499
Pagestream $369
Also a large range of
Educational
Software and
Games.
Ills
Shop 4
CnrBureHii Aichinsm Sftfe WfeS^^^^Pil
ACAR 34
Now that scratch is the equivalent to
a Hard Error on a computer diskette. The
record will play fine until it gets to the
scratch, but will then play the same track
over and over again until you give the
stereo another bump to bounce the nee-
dle over the damaged track.
The same thing can happen to a com-
puter diskette, though not in the same
way. You can scratch or corrupt a floppy
by pressing the disk drive eject button
while the disk is being accessed. Not a
good practice that can also cause dam-
age to your disk drive as well as the
floppy. The result would likely be a
damaged floppy disk making it
unwritable and unreadable in that par-
ticularpartof thedisk. The Amiga would
then read the disk until it came to that
error, try to read the damaged track and
once determined that it can't, would
report to you via a requester that the disk
has a Hard Error on it.
So how can we fix it?
Unfortunately you can't. You could
use DiskDoctor to recover as much in-
formation from the disk as possible, but
a Hard Error on a floppy usually results
in having to throw the disk away. You
cannot use the Amiga Dos Format com-
mand to save the disk as Format will fail
as soon as it gets to the damaged sector
of the disk. However, due to the ingenu-
ity of a program written by Nic Wilson,
we now'have the ability to still save that
disk from the trashcan. The program I
speakofisNOERRORS.
NOERRORS is a formatting pro-
gram that doesn't actually repair the
disk as such, because the errors remain
on the disk. What it does do is format the
disk in such a way that AmigaDOS is
fooled into thinking that those tracks do
not exist any more. In this way, the disk
becomes usable to the Amiga again.
This is a boon to those of us that have
qui te a few disks that have hard errors on
them as we no longer need to throw them
out. At today's prices, who can afford to?
The repaired disk has a bit less stor-
age space on it, but hey, what's better?
A little less storage or none at all?
NoErrors is a commercial program
and to my knowledge, no demo version
of the program exists. However it' s easy
to obtain and not all that expensive when
you think about the money you'll save
on not throwing out your corrupted
floppy disks. Get your legal copy of
NoErrors from the author Nic Wilson
direct at: Nic Wilson Software, 138d
South Street, Toowoomba Qld 4350,
Ph: (076) 358-384 business hours and
FAX (076) 358-539 after hours.
That' s it for another month of del ving
among the answers to mysteries held in
the nooks and crannies of Andy's Attic.
Look forward to more of the same next
issue. Till then ...
PM DEVELOPMENTS
- THE AMIGA SPECIALISTS
For any Amiga peripherals and any Amiga advice or modifications
A500 2.0 Mb RAM expansion - fits in A501 slot - supports 1 Mb ChipRAM agnus - with 2 Mb $290
A500 4.0 Mb RAM expansion - fits in A501 slot - supports 1 or 2 Mb agnus - with 2 Mb $340
A500 4.0 Mb RAM expansion - fits in A501 slot - supports 1 or 2 Mb agnus - with 4 Mb $490
ICD internal hard drive systems to suit A500, A1000, A2000 40 Mb $640
Autobooting with FFS, interface plugs into CPU socket, the hard drive mounts 80 Mb $790
internally BEHIND the 3.5" floppy. You keep your internal floppy II 125 Mb $990
A2000 DataFlyer SCSI HD interface - not the fastest, not the slowest but by far the cheapest $140
FULL GVP RANGE OF PERIPHERALS - See the FULL page ADS elsewhere in this magazine
Hard drive systems, 68030/040 accelerators, RAM expansion. ALL at the best prices in Aust.
For example: JUST CALL !!!!
GVP A500 HD+8 52Q Meg Quantum mech and 8 Mb RAM EXP. ( 0Mb fitted ) $920
GVP A500 HD+8 1 05Q 1 05 Meg Quantum and 8 Mb RAM exp ( Mb fitted )
GVP A2000 HC+8 52 Q 52 Meg Quantum and 8 Mb RAM exp ( Mb fitted )
GVP A2000 HC+8 1 05Q 1 05 Meg Quantum and 8 Mb RAM exp ( Mb fitted )
GVP A2000 22 Mhz 68030/68882/Series 2 SCSI + 1 Mb 32 bit RAM
GVP A2000 33 MHz 68030/68882/Series 2 SCSI + 4 Mb 32 bit RAM
GVP AT EMULATOR (for HD+8 internal mini slot) - AT286 16 MHz
DCTV - PAL - 24 bit color graphics system. Digitise, display and ANIMATE!
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AMIGA Hardware Virus Detector
AMIGA MIDI interface ( in/thru/out )
$35 AMIGA 5.25" External floppy
$50 AMIGA dual Kickstart ROM Mod
$1149
$319
$210
$25
Prices listed above subject to change - probably lower ■ as a matter of fact most are lower right now !!! RING !!!
PM DEVELOPMENTS 1/1421 HIGH ST. MALVERN 3144 PHONE ( 03 ) 822 5873 FAX ( 03 ) 822 5873
ACAR 35
PURE
GENIUS
Genius Digitising
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Add a professional touch to
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utilisies latest technology at
the tip of a Stylus. Fits in the
serial port of your Amiga
500/1000/2000 and co-exists
with your mouse.
Only $399.00
<F A fop Quality 400DPI
J^Handy Scanner for the
Amiga at a truly
Unbeatable Price!
QeniScaiS
Marstek
Scanning couldn't be simpler
Unmatched range of edit/capture facilities and
keyboard control simply not offered by other
Scanners. Marstek gives you the ability to
easily scan images, text and graphics and
even offers 200dpi dual scan mode.
Only $399.00
Video Digitzer II
Completely newly designed interface that plugs into the
Expansion Port of the Amiga 500 or the internal connector of
the Amiga 2000. Frame grab in 1/50 second, record update up
to 3 frames per second. Times lapse feature adjustable in one
second increments to one hour between each frame. Ideal for
capturing flowers opening etc. Please state A500 or A2000
when ordering. RGB Splitter extra
Now with full COLOUR option ° n ' y $262 °°
With the addition of the RGB splitter, to the video digitiser
II you can obtain colour images in only 1 second! Mail Ordf»r
fihflacro-sott
PHONE (08) 234
G.P.OBox 1121
Adelaide, S.A. 5001
Accepted
Dealer Enquiries
Welcome
H'V *
AMmiA
ICflOK
HEPLh\Y
MM III
I ■ ■ < > ivj ■ -v
THE WORLDS MOST POWERFUL FREEZER-UTILITY CARTRIDGE
JUST LOOK AT THE UNMATCHED RANGE OF FEATURES
• SAVE THE ENTIRE PROGRAM IN MEMORY TO DISK
Special compacting techniques enable up to 3 programs to fil on one disk. Maw saves directly
to disk as Amiga Dos - reloads Independently ol the cartridge - oven transfer to hard drive!
Works with up to 2 Megs o! Ram - even 1 Meg Chip Mem (Fatter Agnus}.
^^fc. SUPER POWERFUL TRAINER MODE ■
^^0f^\ now w ' ,h DEEP trainer. Even belter than boforo - allow* you to generate more or
^pT^ipP even infinite livos. fuel, ammo. Perfect as a Trainer Mode to get you past that
^aW*^^ impossible' level. Cosy to use.
^^ • IMPROVED SPRITE EDITOR
Tho full Sprite Editor allows you to view/modify tho whole sprite sot including any attached"
sprites. PLUS A RANGE OF IMPROVED FEATURES.
• VIRUS DETECTION
Comprehensive virus detection and removal features Id protect your software investment.
Work* with nil presently known viruses.
^gdjt DURST NIBBLE R.
^/0F^ Now ,nl ' SUP*' disk copier program is bu.lt into Action Replay Mk III. Just imagine
^Ht^—Pe^ a superiast. efficient disk copier program at the press of a key - no more waiting.
MJp^^ • SAVE PICTURES AND MUSIC TO DISK
Pictures and sound samples con be saved lo dish. Files are saved directly m IFF format
suitable for uso with .ill the major graphic and music packages. Samples are displayed as
screen waveform.
^jjijV Pfl L or NTSC MOOES SELECTABLE
^00F\ Uso*"' 'or (emoving ugly borders when using NTSC software. (Works only with
^P\^Ma" newer Agnus chips).
V*^^ • SLOW MOVMMfttOM
Now you can slow down the action lo your own pace. Easily adjustable from fuD speed to
Wo speed. Ideal to help you through the tricky parts!
^^k. MANY MORE INSTANT CLI COMMANDS •
^0F\ like Rename. Relabel. Copy. etc.
^T\2«ip}^ • RESTART THE PROGRAM
y0^ Simply press a key and the program will continue where you left off.
• FULL STATUS REPORTING
At the press ol a key now you can view the Machine Status, including Fas! Ram. Chip Ram,
Ram Disk. Drive Status, etc.
• POWERFUL PICTURE EDITOR
How you can manipulate and search for screens throughout memory. Over SO commands to
edit the picture plus unique on screen status 'overlay' shows all the information you could
ever need lo work on screens. No other product comes close to offering such dynamic screen
handling of frozen programs?!
^^dJL JOYSTICK HANDLER .
^Pnj| allows the user to select Joystick instead of Keypresses -
^r^^-Ja^^" very useful lor many keyboard programs.
• MUSIC SOUND TRACKER
With Sound Tracker you can Imd the complete music In programs , demos, etc. and save Ihem
to disk. Saves in format suitable lor most track player programs. Works with loads of
programs!!
• AUTOFIRE MANAGER
From the Action Replay III preference screen you can now set up autofire Irom to 100*4.
Just Imagine continuous firo power? Joystick 1 and 2 are set separately for that extra
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^^» IMPROVED RAM EXPANSION SUPPORT.
^_f_»^T*V> Now many more external Rom Expansions will work with all
f^n^J|k> Action Replay 111 command-.
^J»^^ • DISKCODER
^"^ With the new Dtskeoder option you can now tag your disks with a unique code that will
prrv.nl Ih. dick Irom b«« 9 loaded by anyena ol... Tagged* rfofca win only (dead when you
enter the code. Very useful for security.
^-aa. SET MAP -
^ad^^nV allows you lo Load Save.Edit a Koymap.
^r\^0T- * PREFERENCES
\j0^^ Action Rcpl.iy III now It..* icrccn colour pVooavWCM aM inc.-.!, araffiap. Cu-.i!ir:i:-.e
your screens to suit your taste. Very simple to use.
• DISK MONITOR
Invaluable dish monitor - displays disk information in easy to understand format. Fufl
modify/save options.
IMPROVED PRINTER SUPPORT ■
icludmg compressed, small character command.
• DOS COMMANDS
How you have a selection of DOS commands available a< all times - DIR, FORMAT.
COPY. DEVICE, etc.
^-«_* FILE REQUESTOR •
^djR^fc if you enter a command without a lilenome. then a Ma>
^^\^pW requestor is displayed.
^^P - ^" • DISK COPT
Disk. Copy at the press ol a button - foster than Dos Copy. No need to load Workbench -
available at all times.
^^L PLUS IMPROVED DEBUGGER COMMANDS ■
^fdfjPB^i including Mem Walch Points and Trace.
^Tj-y 1 ^' * DOOT SELECTOR
\f^ ' E>lher DFO or Off J can be selected as the boot drive when workmg with Amiga Dos
disks. Very useful to be able to boot from your external drive.
PLUS A MACHINE CODE FREEZER MONITOR WITH EVEN MORE POWER!!
EVEN MORE FEATURES INCLUDING 80 COLUMN DISPLAY AND 2 WAY SCROLLING:-
• Full M68000 Assembler Disassembler • Full screen editor • Load Save block • Write Siring lo memory • Jump lo specilic address • Show Ham as lot • Show trozen
piclurc • Play resident sample • Show and edit all CPU registers and tlafl • Calculator • Help command • Full search feature • Unique Cuslon Cnip Editor allows you to see
and modify all chip regislors oven write only registers • Notepad • Disk handling - show actual track. Disk Sync, pattern etc. • Dynamic Breakpoint handling • Show memory as
HEX. ASCII. Assembler, Decimal • Copper Assemble Disassemble - now wilh sulfi, names
REMEMBER AT ALL TIMES YOU ARE INTERROGATING THE PROGRAM IN ITS -FROZEN- STATE WITH ALL MEMORY AND REGISTERS INTACT -
INVALUABLE FOR THE DE-BUGGER OR JUST THE INQUISITIVE!
PH: (08)2345050
FAX: (08) 352 8305
G.P.O. BOX 1121 ADELAIDE .S.A 5001
fflH EDITOR
More AMOS please!
I must admit that I was surprised to
see that someone was willing after all
these years to begin doing a regular
article in an Australian magazine on
AmigaBASIC. I would have thought
that any BASIC other than AmigaBASIC
would be more relevant.
I know and understand the argument
that AmigaBASIC is packaged with most
of the Amiga series and therefore most
Amiga owners would with little help be
able to type in code as listed in a maga-
zine, as I myself use to do many years
ago on my C64 (the old grey ghost of my
past).
But please, please believe me Amiga
BASIC is an ancient and seriously disa-
bled language, not worthy of such a fine
machine as the Amiga. If there was ever
to be any hope for Amiga BASIC then
there would have been constant revi-
sions over the life of the product to
improve its shortcomings. Amiga
BASICs' life is over, let it rest in peace.
Drag yourself forward into the nineties
and look closely at the most advanced
BASIC type language available today,
AMOS is the language that this maga-
zine should be encouraging its readers to
learn.
The cost of AMOS is not lhat much
more than many games that are on the
market today and now with the release
of the compiler, which I might add is a
totally optional accessory, it has be-
come the premiere entry level language
for the Amiga.
Please do not allow the novice Amiga
users to become disheartened and disil-
lusioned with their machines, as they
can only become using AmigaBASIC.
AMOS is a living and expanding lan-
guage, a modern language that pushes
the Amiga to the limits of its designed
capabilities and allows the programmer,
either advanced or raw beginner, to
simply and easily write the programs of
his or her dreams in an environment that
is both powerful and user friendly. I will
not pretend that AMOS is the be all and
end all of entry level languages. But
show me a better one.
I live isolated from the rest of the
Amiga community and magazines such
as yours (of which I am a subscriber) and
my trusty modem are my only links with
that community . Take the initiative away
from the British publications and intro-
duce an AMOS series, as you have for
many years for the C64 community.
T.M Nichols,
Pannawonica WA
Ed: Yes, you're right. AmigaBASIC
ain 't worth investing too much time into.
However, you are also right in our rea-
sons for including the AmigaBASIC col-
umn. It's available, affordable and eve-
ryone has it! Hopefully, by getting peo-
ple started on AmigaBASIC we can en-
courage them to look at spending tlie
extra money and moving onto AMOS or
CanDo perliaps.
Clieck out our regular AM OS column
in this issue.
Amiga 3000 or 2000?
Congratulations on a fantastic maga-
zine. I would appreciate your opinion on
the following. Is the Amiga 3000 a dead
duck? For more than a year I have been
saving to buy what I thought was the
ultimate graphicsmachine.butnow with
the arrival of 68040's for the 2000 it
would seem the A3000 would be a waste
of money. Check the following:
A3000 - Base Machine $4000^1500,
040 Accelerator (no expansion) $2800.
Total price $7000.
A2000 - Base Machine $1000, ECS
and V2.0 $400 (to be installed with
2Mb), A2320 (Flicker Fixer) $400, 040
Accelerator (up to 32Mb RAM) $3000,
Hard Card$1000(up to 170Mb and8Mb
RAM). Total price $5800.
As you can -see it seems that the
A2000 is cheaper, more powerful and
expandable of the two!
What more does the A3000 offer for
my money?
J. Pounds
Ed: / think your figures are a bit out.
Try these.
A3000 - Base Machine $3800, 040
Accelerator $2800. Total price $6600.
The reason the 040 board on the
A 3000 has no expansion is that it doesn 't
need it - the A3000's architecture is 32
bit, so the existing memory expansion
potential canbe used which is more tlian
you'll ever need - a total of 18.
Furtliermore, the A3000's SCSI in-
terface is very fast and you can easily
add a second SCSI drive, or replace the
existing unit with any other size SCSI
drive you cart fit in tlie machine - the
limits are tlie same as the A2000.
Remember too tliat the A3000 lias a
32 bit data path to the custom chips,
which means they 're several times faster
tlian the A2000. Tlie A3000 is also a lot
smarter looking, better designed ma-
chine than tlieA2000. Tlie power switch
is located at the front of the machine and
the controller ports (joystick, mouse etc)
are flush mounted on tlie side instead of
tlie silly recessed arrangement on the
A2000.
So let's see liow theA2000 compares.
A2000 - Base Machine with Hard
Drive-$1500,ECS&V2.0$450,A2320
$400, 040Accelerator$3200, ChipRAM
Accelerator $550. Total Price $6100.
It may sound cheaper, but in fact you
lutve a machine which is slower, bigger,
not nearly as smart and for my money I
would pay the difference and enjoy the
A3000.
Kill the C64?
Up until recently I was a very big fan
ofyour magazine. Ihavebeen collecting
ACAR since the days both the C64 and
Amiga were covered equally.
However, since ACAR took up prais-
ing the Amiga, hating IBM-type PC's
andproclaiming the soon-to-come death
of the C64, I have only been buying
ACAR for Owen James C64 column.
Good as his column might be, I think it
isridiculous topurchase an entire maga-
zine for one column.
I do like Amigas, but don' t think that
ACAR 38
continued on page 42
^m
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Animagic .
ARexx
An Dcpi Pro v2.0 .
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. S319
| AudioMaster III $ 119 1
Bars & Pipes
Bars & Pipes Pro .
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. S469
ISlitz Basic $ 99
Broadcast Titler 2 ....
BT2 Font Enhancer .
CanDo 1.5
.$379
.5189
.$145
CDROM FiloSys $ 72 ! |
CrossDos
DeluxePaint IV
Deluxe Music
Design Works
DigiVicw Gold 4.0 .
Director 2.0 .
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Dr T's Tiger Cub $ 99 ! |
DynaCADD
excellence!
Foundation
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Imagine
Imagine Buddy
Imagine Companion .
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InterFont
Karafonls ....
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c H ^ ^.'
The Hard Drive Sale Continues/
Quality hard drives
insane prices. Strictly limited quantities.
Conner
20 Mb
normally $ 459
now only
$ 249 !!
Conner
40 Mb
normally $ 569
now only
$ 329 !!
Fujitsu
45 Mb
normally $ 599
now only
$ 349 !!
Fujitsu
90 Mb
normally $ 899
now only
$ 549 !!
Fujitsu
105 Mb
normally $1049
now only
$ 699 !!
Fujitsu
136 Mb
normally $1199
now only
$749!!
Fujitsu
182 Mb
normally $1499
now only
$ call !!
A2000 Hard Drive Controllers
M.A.S.T. Hash 2000 - 8 bit Economy model $299
M.A.S.T. Flash 2000 - 16 bit Turbo model $399
Save $50 off an 8 bit Flash, or $75 off a 16 bit Flash —
just buy a hard drive, too!
Hardware
^r
M.A.S.T. Micromegs - 512k + clock 5 59 !
M.A.S.T. Minimegs - 2 Mb Fast RAM 5299 !
M.A.S.T. Unidrive - external floppy, no-click S129 !
M.A.S.T. Enhanced Unidrive - track display, anti-virus 5149 !
IVS PrinterFace - extra printer port S 99 I
ICD Bicker Free Video S549 !
PP&S DoubleTalk - AppleTalk compatible networking 5699 I
PP&S 68040 Accelerator for A2000 $2995 !
PP&S 68040 Accelerator for A3000 $2795 !
M.A.S.T. ColorBurst - 24 bit colour for all Amigas 51 199 !
Kawai FunLab (Special Price! One only!) 5799 !
Miracle Piano Tutoring System 5599 I
Prism Professional RGB Colour Splitter $499 !
Maestro 2400 baud modem $299 1
Dakota SkelchMasler - graphics tablet for all Amigas $699 !
Low Cost NEC CDROM package $699 !
High Performance Toshiba CDROM Package $1399 !
CrystalSound - Professional 8 bit sampler (new!) $199 !
M.A5.T. SAM - SMPTE/MIDI Interface (new!) $249 !
We now stock
Commodore, GVP, Supra and Phoenix products.
Call us for the best prices on nearly anything!
Hard Drives
Quantum 52 Mb $ 499 Fujitsu 105 Mb $699
Quantum 105 Mb $ 699 Fujitsu 330 Mb $1999
Quantum 210 Mb $1299 Fujitsu 425 Mb $2249
Quantum 425 Mb $2579 Fujitsu 520 Mb $2699
All drives shown are 3.5" format - external cases $199
2 yr Warranty on Quantum, 5 yr on Fujitsu >300 Mb
SyQuest Removable Cartridge Drives
All the advantages of floppies, with the
speed and size of a hard drive.
SyQuest drive 44 Mb internal $ 699 -— external $ 945
SyQuest drive 88 Mb internal $ 999 — external $1245
Cartridges (not included) 44 Mb $149 88 Mb $249
r SCSI AND SPECIALTY CABLES - What do you need?"*
imcirt Tech Corner
The place to go for the latest in HiTech gadgets!
This month - Crystal Growing Kits - from $29-50
Grow 16 different types of spectacular crystals, up to 8 inches
in diameter. Discover the laws of nature with these easy to use
kits, in vivid colours and a range of beautiful formations!
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by air!
Popular Science and Popular Electronics - order now!
Video Printer Bureau now available
High quality output of your pictures, renderings or Still Video shots
$5 per picture, $2 setup charge
Scanning and PostScript output also available
CDROMs, 68030/68040 Accelerators, WB 2.0
Public Domain Disks — $4 each.
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KEEP YOUR AMIGA
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* Alter Image Genlock and Software for Video
* Alter Audio Midi and Software for Music
* MPS 1230 Printer, also for A2000/3000
* 1084S Monitor with stereo sound, video and
S-VHS Input, also suits A2000/3000 (and your
VCR!)
A2000/3000 Accessories
* Multisync Monitor
* A2301 Internal Genlock
* Accelerator Cards, 68030 with RAM
* Pc XT/AT Emulators
* Display Enhancer Card for A2000 + Multisync
* SCSI Controller and Hard Disk for A2000
* Ram Cards expands up to 9Mb
WE HAVE YOUR NEEDS COVERED WITH
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See your Commodore
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need and all you
need to know.
AMIGA
they are the best home computer ever
made. A PC can easily match, if not
better, the Amiga in sound and graphics
with the appropriate add-ons.
As for the death-of-the-C64 claims,
all they do is make yourmagazine sound
a like a continuous upgrade to Amiga
advertisement. If you are going to dedi-
cate yourself to one computer, do it
properly and kill everything left of the
C64.
Chris Nilsson
QLD
Ed: I'm glad to hear you're still
buying the magazine, even if it is just for
one column. We stand tall as one of the
last remaining Commodore magazines
to provide any support for the C64. Just
as the Vic 20 eventually faded from
popularity, so too tfie C64 will one day
disappear from the pages of this publi-
cation. Such words are not self-fulfilling
prophecy, but a mere statement of fact.
Industry support for tlie C64 is dimin-
ishing, Amigas are becoming more af-
fordable and more and more people are
upgrading.
Just take a look at the number of
advertisements mentioning C64 prod-
ucts to get a clear picture of wliere
tilings are headed.
It would be unfair to our readers to
promote a machine which despite hav-
ingenjoyeda long andfruitful life, isfast
nearing the time when it will no longer
represent value for money.
On the subject of PCs comparisons, I
think enough has been said in my edito-
rials over past months to make it per-
fectly clear that we recognise the PC is
serious competitionfor the Amiga. How-
ever, as I liave stated many times, you
can't beat tlie Amiga when it comes to
buying a machine that not only performs
useful tasks but also offers many enjoy-
able things to tinker with.
The C64 and Geos column will con-
tinue until such time tliat the many let-
ters Owen James receives dry up for
good
Which Workbench?
I have had my A500 for two years
now. One thing which I haven't worked
outisthedifference between V1.2, which
is what I have, and V1.3 of Workbench.
What is the Amiga PC 500? Is this an
Amiga 500 that is also compatible with
the IBM?
Can I have my A500 put into an
A2000 body so I can use all the A2000
hard disks, genlocks etc? If I had an
AmigaBasic program, how do I turn it
into machine code? Can you recom-
mend a desktop publishing program?
Greatmagazinejustthe right combi-
nation between productivity and games.
ED: I love people who cram lots of
questions into one letter. I think we
should liave a competition to see what is
the most questions you can fit on a single
spaced A4 page.
Well, liere goes. Tlie main difference
between 1.2 and 1.3 is the additionofthe
Fast File System and Autobooting -both
only important if you have a Iiard drive.
However, tliere are numerous other small
improvements which you will only no-
tice if you use the CLI. Some public
domain programs need 1.3 for the im-
proved Console Handler - part of the
operating system which controls input
and output of text to a text window.
I would recommendyou wait and get
Workbench 2.0- it offers a slicker inter-
face, faster floppy drive speed, a far
improved manual and more graphics
modes if you liave the Enhanced Cltip
Set. Expect to pay around $149.
Tlie Amiga PC 500 is a plain old
Amiga 500 with a confusing name.
Putting your A500 in an A2000 case
wouldn't achieve anything - you would
still be missing all tlie necessary expan-
sion slots on the A2000 's motlierboard
You 're better off to sell your A500 and
buy an A2000.
AmigaBasic won't just turn into ma-
cliine code - lioweveryou can compile it
- which sends it on tlie way. BASIC is an
interpreted language. Each instruction
must be read and interpreted into a
series ofinst rue lions tlie main processor
in your Amiga can execute. By compil-
ing the BASIC program, tlie code is
interpreted and optimised as best possi-
ble - creating a rather slmusy machine
code program. The result is much faster
tlian BASIC alone, but still not compa-
rablewithprogramswritten intlie CPU's
native tongue to start witlu
For desktop publishing, as a begin-
ner, I would recommend PageSetter III.
You 'llfind a hard drive would be a worth
while addition if you plan on doing much
serious work with your machine.
PUBLIC DOMAIN, AMIGA MAIL ORDER
DISK No, 441 Total Recal Slideshow.
DISK No, 174 Beasty Boys Mega Demo.
+ Heaps More.
Free Catalogue with every order.
Disks S4.00 ea. + $2.00 postage on total order.
Make cheques payable to: Jason Allan.
PD Power 25 High st, Mt Kuring-gai,
NSW 2080 or Ph. (02) 457-9200
OZARD P.D.
New software arrives daily .download
from around the world
FISH 60,AMICUS,AMIGA,TBAG and
100's of DEMO disks.
Compilation disk: Ray Tracing and Mandel
Biol, Graphics, Adult, Games, Music and
Virus Killer disk, plus more soon.
$2 for the catalogue disk with over 1.3meg on it
* No joining fee
* All disk Virus FREE
* No postal charge.
OZARD P.D are the demo specialist:
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DEALER ENQUIRES WELCOME: Ph: (03) 543 2166
FREE PACK & POST OVER $100
ACAR 42
PD Update
by Glenn Bussell
Welcome to the latest edition ofP.D update.
This month we will be taking a quick look at
some of the best demos available at the mo-
ment.
Eric's Latest
First cab off the rank is the Stealthy II animation by the
famousEric Shwartz. This animation features a stealth fighter
(surprise surprise) bamboozling a poor Russian Mig. The
animation is in the cartoon style and is bound to provide a
couple of laughs, on the down side though the animation is
fairly short and requires 1 megabyte of memory to run.
Also out now by Eric Shwartz is the incredible Anti-
Lemmings demo, featuring the poor Lemmings in, amongst
other things, a do or die battle with the stealth fighter from the
Stealthy II animation. This is really one of the most incredible
demos I've yetseen. There must be a catch, I hear you say, and
there is and it's quite a large catch. For a demo of such length
to include the almost television quality animation it features,
an equally incredible 2 meg of memory is required to run it.
can::::
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Compatible
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• 8 Meg Fast RAM +SyOue*
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• 500KB/S SCSI Port
• 45mm Slimline footprint
• AutoBoot Disable switch
Meg $349.00 □
2 Meg $449.00 □
4 Meg $559.00 □
8 Meg $899.00 □
:S CRAf
2000
• 1.5 MB/Sec Transfer
• Hardcard Mounting
8 Bit SCSI
Meg $299.00 d
2 Meg $449.00 Q
4 Meg $599.00 D
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16 Bit SCSI
Meg $399.00 D
2 Meg
4 Meg
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SPECIAL OFFER!!
SCRAM 500 plus 2 Mb RAM (using 256 x 4 ZIP DRAMS - whilst
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SCRAM 2000 8 2Mb (256 x 4 ZIP DRAM) $449 add $469 for
Quantum 52Mb drive.
SCRAM 2000 16 2Mb (256 x 4 ZIP DRAM) $449 add $469 for
Quantum 52Mb drive.
tilities
Phone: Canberra (06) 239 6658 Fax: 239 6619
PO Box 3053, Manuka ACT 2603
MegaMicro Technology Ply Ltd
P.O. Box 511
Bondi Junction N S.W. 2022
t.i: (02) 363 0990
F„: (02)363 1246
CrossDOS 5.0 Plus
The MS-DOS file system for the Amiga
Supports high density disks
Supports Amiga 20MB floptical drive
...bundled with CrossPC...
100%software PC-XT emulation
Requires no extra hardware
Emulates CGA or Monochrome on Amiga
Uses standard Amiga floppy drives
PC parallel, serial & mouse emulation
The Ambassador
Bridgeboard: access MS-DOS data on
Amiga floppy drives
Access Bridgeboard partitions from Amiga
Faster partition access
Both available soon from
your dealer
ACAR 43
OZHQ +6I-Z-S2I 3313.H5T.V32
2Hone9 sseo ohlv
Simpsons Demo
Simpsons
On the subject of television animations Bart Simpson has
hit the Amiga in a big way - there are a number of demos out
now featuring the Simpsons. If you feel an overwhelming
desire to possess one of these demos the one to go for is the
Simpsons Demo by Decay. The Decay version of the Simpsons
features the obligatory Do the Bartman sample and some
really good animations of Bart and the rest of the Simpsons.
One warning though to parents who are thinking of using
this demo to entertain the kids, unfortunately someone could
not resist the urge of putting an expletive in the message that
accompanies it.
Pink Floyd
From the humorous to the sombre. Some of you may have
noticed a Pink Floyd demo available that takes up a mammoth
six disks. This demo features something I've rarely if ever
seen in an Amiga demo atmosphere. Based on the Pink Floyd
album/movie 'The Wall', this really is more like a movie than
a traditional Amiga demo. The six disks are put to good use
with the entire demo running for in excess of an hour!
The coding is nothing incredible but the overall sense of
atmosphere it portrays makes this one of the most memorable
I've ever seen.
You need one meg of memory and two disk drives to run
the demo. Even if you get your Public Domain disks for three
dollars a disk, this demo will set you back as much as an
album! Still, if you're an Amiga owner and a Pink Floyd fan
1 think I'd be tempted to take the risk and buy it.
Music
On the subject of music, with the release of the new Dire
Straits album I became interested enough to search out a demo
of Money for Nothing from their previous album Brothers in
Arms. This demo is fairly straightforward with a digitised
picture of the Brothers in Arms album cover and a long sample
taken from Money for Nothing.
Similar demos to this are available featuring Billy Joel's
We Didn't Start the Fire and the theme from the Adams
Family(lMb).
Red Sector
Last but certainly not least is the Red Sector Demo Maker,
this name may ring a bell with some of you as the name of a
product that Pactronics are distributing with a price tag of
somewhere around $80. It is indeed the same program and it
seems to have no disabled features, the save certainly works
and some incredible results can be achieved.
All this leaves me a little mystified as to the legalities of the
whole tiling, after all some companies are selling this program
for as much as eighty dollars and any Australian company that
is distributing 17 Bit PD software is selling it copyright free
lor the cost of a disk plus duplication fees.
The only major drawback of the PD version of the program
is that there is no documentation whatsoever accompanying
the program this means that getting started can be pretty tough
going but the end results make the initial struggle well
worthwhile. (NOTE: According to Pactronics. the program is
NOT public domain - libraries carrying the program should
remove the demo maker from their collection - Ed.)
If any of the disks mentioned in this article have caught
your eye you may be wondering how you can get your hands
on the software. Most of the software covered in this article
is from the 17 Bit Public Domain library - a Britisii Public
Domain company that specialises in Demos. These disks are
available from a number of distributors in Australia with
prices ranging from three to five dollars.
As this software is copyright free you are also welcome to
acquire it from a friend, bulletin boards or check with your
local user group.
Simpsons Demo
ROKSTAR
KREATOR
BJ T -MASTER
DATA SHARK
ACAR 44
Announcing the
Phoenix SCSI box!
/\re you hard disk bound?
Need more than 20Mb?
The SCSI box connects to yourA590 or any
AMIGA with a SCSI controller to give you a
second SCSI drive. Complete with power and
activity LED and fan. It obtains power from the
disk drive port.
Phoenix SCSI Box...
Alone with all cables
With 52Mb Quantum Drive
With 105Mb Quantum Drive
2Mb Chip
RAM for A500
This kit brings the A500 up to A3000
standards with 2Mb of chip RAM.
Installation requires the A500 to be
opened up. Kit uses and includes 4 of
1 Mb x 4 DRAM (DIP) with a 3 position
switch to access l/2Mb. l/2MbChip & .
Installation not suitable for beginners
Kit with Agnus $399.00
$129.00
$695.00
$895.00
Colour Digitiser
by Phoenix
Digitise straight from a colour camera or paused
VCR with no need for filter wheels
Provision for both SVHS and composite input
Outstanding quality and convenience
Complete with ColourView Software - $499.00
Send for a disk with examples - $5.
A 1 000/Phoenix board owners should order parallel
port adapter - $35
Compatible with A3000, System 2.0
and Digiview software
Phoenix
Microtechnologies Pty Ltd
The
AMIGA
Specialists
Phoenix Board
Replacement Motherboard -AMIGA 1000
Now shipping from stock
Complete with - Obese (1Mb) Agnus, 2Megs RAM (1Mb Chip)
on motherboard, 68881/2 Socket, Drive Swap Switch, Sockets for
4 K/starts ( 1 .3 ROM supplied) with 2 way switch. SCSI controller
on main board, A2000 Expansion Slot & Video Slot, Connector for
8Mb Daughterboard. Battery Backed Clock. - $945.00
2Mb chip RAM option - $250.00
2Mb chip RAM Kit (for those who already have a board) - $399.00
Internal Hard Drives - These are Quantum SCSI Hard Drives that
fits inside your original AMIGA 1000 case. 52Mb - $595.00
These prices include a mounting kit and cables 105Mb - $845.00
Installation
Phoenix Board
- $70.00
Hard Drive
from
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Accessories
SCSI Extension Cable
- $30.00
DynaCADD
Fast 2D & True 3D Design & Drafting
software for Electrical, Mechanical,
Architectural & Civil applications.
Version 2.0
Retail Price - $1049.00
Educational Price - $699.00
4 Disk Demo Version - $20.00
refundable upon purchase of package
8Meg Boards for AlOOO's
OK - unpopulated $349.00
1 Meg populated $419.00
2Meg populated $499.00
Kickstart Swap Board $50.00
3 ROM Sockets + Ribbon Cable
Video Breakout Box - Scart $89.00
SVHS and RCA inputs and outputs
Connect equipment with any type
of connector
Audio Digitisers - Mono $50.00
Analogue Joystick Adapters $30.00
Use IBM analogues with
the latest flight simulators
Sreen Filters $25.00
Reduces Interlace flicker
3.5" Floppy Drives
A500 $179.00
A2000/3000 $159.00
A 1000 $189.00
Post and Packaging $ 1 0.00
Parallel Port IO Boards $160.00
Phoenix Microtechnologies Pty Ltd, 18 Hampton Road, Keswick, South Australia 5035
Phone (08) 293 8752 Fax (08) 293 8814 Hours - Mon-Fri 8:45 - 6.00 Sat 10:00 - 1 :00
AMOS Column - Part 3
Gadgets and Sliders
by Wayne Johnson
When creating any type of utility or application, the
appearance of gadgets and icons can add a lot more
feel to a program and make it more comfortable to
use. Most paint programs are a good example of this. Icons and
sliders representing tools can either be a joy to use or they can
be just plain clumsy. A good method for icons or sliders is to
have them highlight when clicked on.
This first program is a slider routine. By clicking on the
slider, it changes colour to indicate that the click is active on
the gadget. By moving the mouse, the gadget moves to the
current mouse position inside the boundaries.
Please note that any indented lines are continued straight on
from the previous.
****************** ********* *********
Simple Slider Gadget Routine
i***********************************
Curs Off: Rash Off: CIs
Double Buffer : Gr Writing : Rem SET UP THE SCREEN AND
Ink 3 : Bar 60,50 To 260,1 00 : Rem DRAW A BOX AREA FOR THE
Ink : Bar 70,70 To 250,80 : Rem SLIDER.
Ink 4 : Bar 0,0 To 8,8 : Rem DRAW A SLIDER GADGET.
Erase 1 : Rem CLEAR THE SPRITE BANK.
Get Bob 1 ,0,0 To 9,9 : Rem TAKE GREEN GADGET AS BOB 1 .
: Rem AND RED AS BOB 2.
: Rem PLACE BOB IN OUR SCREEN.
Ink 5: Bar 0,0 To 8,8
Get Bob 2,0,0 To 9,9
Bob 0,71 ,71,1
Do
If X ScreenlX Mouse)>X Bob(0) and X Screen(X Mouse)<X
Bob(0)+9 and Mouse Key=1 Then Bob 0,„2 : Gosub SELECT
Loop
Rem CHECK IS MOUSE IS ON TOP OF GADGET AND THE LEFT
MOUSE HAS BEEN CLICKED.
SELECT:
If Mouse Key=0 Then Bob 0,„1 : Ink : Bar 0,0 To 1 80,20
:VLUE=X Bob(0)-71 : Ink 7 : Text 1 0,1 0,"Value of slider:
u +Str$(VLUE) : Wait Vbl : Return : Rem MOUSE WAS NOT HELD
IN OR WAS RELEASED
If X Bob(0)>=71 and X Bob(0)<=241 Then Bob 0,X Screen(X
Mouse)„2
If X Bob(0)<71 Then Bob 0,71 „2 : Goto SELECT
If X Bob(0)>241 Then Bob 0,241 „2 : Goto SELECT
Rem ONLY ALLOW TO MOVE INSIDE THE BORDERS OTHERWISE
RETURN.
Goto SELECT
In our last section of this routine, LIMIT BOB could have
been used. However, in this particular case, we would still
need to check for locations to retrieve values. Next up is a
routine for highlighting an icon when it is clicked . The method
here is to use SCREEN COPY to reverse our Icon image.
Check your manual and you will find that SCREENCOPY has
one last optional parameter available. This is called MODE.
By placing a %0011000 in the MODE parameter, the Witter
will reverse anything it grabs and paste it in its altered state.
Let's take a look at the routine:
Flash Off: CIs
Ink 3: Bar 50,50 To 81 ,70
Gr Writing Ink 6 : Text 50,62,'Test"
Reserve Zone 1 : Set Zone 1 ,50,50 To 81 ,70
Rem PAINT AN ICON, NAME IT, AND PLACE A ZONE AROUND IT.
Do
If Mouse ZoneoO and Mouse Key=1 Then Gosub SELECT
If Mouse Key=2 Then END
Rem IF IT HAS ENTERED THE ZONE AND THE LEFT MOUSE IS
CLICKED, JUMP TO SUBROUTINE 'SELECT.
Loop
SELECT:
Screen Copy 0,50,50,82,71 To 0,50,50,%1 10000
Repeat
Until Mouse Key=0 or Mouse Key=2
Rem REVERSE THE ICON WITH SCREEN COPY AND WAIT FOR
THE LEFT MOUSE TO BE RELEASED.
Screen Copy 0,50,50,82,71 To 0,50,50,%1 10000
Rem REVERSE AGAIN TO RESTORE THE ORIGINAL ICON TO
NORMAL.
Return
The binary figure 96001 10000 used in MODE is called a
minterm. Experimenting with these minterms can produce
some unusual effects. But this routine is just a simple way of
ACAR46
making tools more interesting to use.
Notice in programs like Soundtracker,
the tools remain as juststatic parts of the
screen, whereas the program Startrekker
1 .2 highlights its tools when selected.
News
The current version of AMOS is still
1 .32 however the compiler is now up to
version 1.12. Many bugs have finally
been eradicated; the main one being the
inability to compile AMAL banks.
Hints and Tips
A problem I always had up until three
months ago was that I had never been
able to place more than four sprites on
the same line. Now, we know that the
Amiga can produce four fifteen colour
sprites on a line, but I had always made
sure that I painted in colour registers 16
AMIGA PD
CHOOSE ANY 4 OF THESE
DISKS FOR ONLY $16
U202 DCOPY Fast & efficient disk copier- One
drive or more
G 1 00 DRIP Top Quality game. A cross between
Pipcmania & Pacman.
G104 ZERG Ultima-style adventure game. Also
Pontoon, Daicks & more.
G108 YELP Good game. Paint the grid, avoid
monsters, collect bonuses.
Gl 1 3 FRANTIC FREDDIE Platform game with
unlimited lives option.
G120 JUMPY Addictive ball game and level editor
to make your own.
U204 MASTER VIRUS KILLER Powerful & easy
to use. Knows 124 strains.
U210 ICON DISK Icon designers & over 220
sample icons. All you need.
B101 AMIBASE Good budget priced database.
Easy to use.
B102 CLERK & BANKN Two of the best PD
accounts & chequebook programs.
D003 IMPACT DEMOS 5 Demos from Europe.
Great graphics & sound.
E001 TALKING COLOUR BOOK Draw and
colour in. Great for kids.
The latest and the best of Amiga PD.
Free Catalogue with every order.
All disks thoroughly checked.
4 Disks - $16. Additional disks $4 each.
Quote the disk numbers you require and enclose
cheque or money order payable to Brunswick
Publications.
We pay postage. Immediate delivery.
ORDER FROM: BRUNSWICK PUBLICATIONS
PO BOX 458
BONDIJUNCTION NSW 2022
and above and only used three colours
for each. Unfortunately, this is not quite
enough.
When your images are designed and
cleaned up in the Sprite Editor, you must
reduce the palette size to LOWRES four
before you save out your images. The
palette will remain untouched, but the
number of bitplanes will be reduced to
two which is necessary in four colour
sprites. Themethod I use is with SPRITE
X rather than the Sprite Editor. Club
members can order this from the Aus-
tralian AMOS Club. Non-members can
get it from other PD sources. The first
step is design a your sprites in a paint
program or with SPRITE X in 32 colour
mode.
For sprites and 1, use register 16 as
black and 17, 18 and 19 for the painting
colours. For sprites 2 and 3, use registers
20,21,22 and 23... and so on. Load the
IFF image into SPRITE X and enter the
sprite grabber mode. Grab your 3-colour
sprites and return to sprite edit mode.
Click on the SPRITE/BOB icon and
reduce the bitplanes by clicking on the
REZ icon and the LOWRES 4 icon.
Save out your sprites and you will find
that you will be able to produce 8 sprites
on the same line.
Using 3D
Extension
When using programs that need the
VooDoo 3D extension, make sure the
current directory is set outside the
AMOS_SYSTEM directory. Also make
sure that the correct path is set for load-
ing the 3D objects otherwise you will get
an object not found error.
Remember to always set your 3D
screen height to 256 otherwise it de-
faults to 200 line NTSC.
More Speed
If possible, use the TD CLS com-
mand rather than CLS because it's
faster.
SCREEN COPY is faster than TD
BACKGROUND. When using an iff
picture in your 3D-frames, it is better to
SCREEN COPY them onto your screen
and then draw your 3D objects. You can
also paste other screen parts like Icons
and BOBs after you have drawn your 3 D
objects to give the effect of an object
passing in front of a background and
passing underneath other screen parts.
Avoid using PRINT in any 3D screen
as it slows down your action quite dras-
tically.
When designing your objects in 3D,
try to use the smallest amount of shapes
possible, using only surface detail where
you can. This will greatly speed up the
amount of frames per second.
Ten Liners
This month's Ten Liner doesn't con-
tain a great deal of game plan, however
it contains smooth screen scrolling and
chasing aliens. Move left and right to
guide your ship and up to combat grav-
ity.
TEXTILE
PRINTING
Use your home computer
as a textile print shop.
With our special Heat Transfer
ribbons, you can print your reversed
graphic image onto regular
printer paper, which becomes an
iron-on textile transfer.
SELECTED PRICES for
H.T. RIBBONS
Commodore MPS803
27.50
Citizen 120D/GSX140 mono
29.50
Citizen GSX 140 4 colour
49.50
Epson LX/LQ400/800
31.50
Epson LX80/86
27.50
Star NXl 000 mono
27.50
Star NX1000 4 colour
39.50
StarNX/XB24 10 mono
31.50
Star XB/1 5 4 colour
44.50
* monochrome ribbons available in
Black, Red, Blue, Green, Yellow
Lazarus Ribbons
70 Wolseley Rd tel: (02) 960 2737
(008) 24 9991
Mosman
NSW 2088
fax: (02) 968 1276
ACAR47
(1)
Erase 1 : Load "extras:sprite_600/aliens/
alien7.abk" : Load "exlras:sprite_600/aliens/
alien6.abk",1 : Make Mask : Dim C$(4)
(2)
GAME: Screen Open 0,640,256,8,Lowres ;
Screen Display 0,130,40,320,256 : Curs Off :
CIs : Flash Off : Get Sprite Palette : For A=1
To 640 : Ink Rnd(7)+1 : Draw A,0 To
A,Rnd(50)+1 : DrawA,256ToA,256-Rnd(50)+1
: Next A: Double Buffer
(3)
AS="A: I J1=0 J A; I J1=1 J A; IJ1&4=0J B; I
J1&8=0 J C; P; J A; B: I X>319 J A; LX=X+3;
P; J A; C: I X<1 J A; L X=X-3; P; J A; " : B$="A
0,(1,5)(2,5)(3,5)(4,5);A: FR0=1 T1; IJ1&1<>0
J B; L X=XS(0,280); Next R0; " : Make Mask :
Hide
(4)
B$=B$+1 Y=Y+1 ; P; J A; B: L Y=Y-1; L
X=XS(0,280); P; J A; " : Bob 0,X Screen(260),Y
Screen(1 70),1 : Channel To Screen Offset :
Amal A$ : Channel 1 To Bob : Amal 1 ,B$
(5)
C$(1)=" A 0,(12,5)(13,4)(14,5); A: L X=320; L
Y=50; M RA-X,RB-Y,60; F R0=1 T 10; N R0; P;
J A; " : C$(2)="A 0,(1 2,5)(13,4)(1 4,5); A: L
X=320; L Y=206; M RA-X,RB-Y,90; F R0=1 T
10; N R0; P; J A; " : C$(3)="A
0,(12,5)(13,4)(14,5);A:LX=0;°
(6)
C$(3)=C$(3)+"L Y=128; M RA-X,RB-Y,70; F
R0=1T10;NR0;P;JA;":C$(4)="A
0,(12,5)(13,4)(14,5); A: L X=640; L Y=128; M
RA-X.RB-Y.80; F R0=1 T 10; N R0; P; J A; "
(7)
For A=1 To 4 : Bob A.0,0,12 : Channel A+1 To
BobA:AmalA+1,C$(A):NextA
(8)
Amal On : Amal On 1 : For A=2 To 6 : Amal
On A: Wait 10: Next A
Do : Amreg(0)=X Bob(0) : Amreg(1)=Y Bob(0) :
If Bob Col(0)=-1 Then Amal Off : Fade 4 : Wait
Key : Goto GAME
(10) Loop
Justaquick thank you to Siggy Hewett
of Telopia for his hints & tips with 3D.
More next month. If you would like
tocontributeany tips orhave your AMOS
questions answered, just write!
^Normally, I read Professional
Amiga User magazine around
mid-morning.
Now available at a
newsagent near you.
Alternatively, ask your
favourite Amiga dealer.
No game reviews, just
meaty chunks of editorial.
Fully desktop published
on Amiga. RRP $5.95.
ACAR 48
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ACCELERATORS
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Used equipment bought & sold
Tel. (02) 545 3383 or (018) 25 7471
AmigaBasic Graduation Part 4
Random Disk Files Part II
by Peter Deane
We left you last month with a
random file sitting on disk
called "Address.ran". This ar-
ticle will show you how to now access
the data locked away in this file, make
use of it, and change it!
GET-ting it out
The command that allows you to
retrieve data from random files is called
GET.
This has the syntax:
GET #<Channel>,<Recordnumber>
Note that <Recordnumber> is op-
tional, and if you don'tspecifyitBASIC
will give the next record after the record
itlastread. If you haveread zero records
from the file it will give the first If you
have just read record number 23, it will
give you 24.
First, open the file for random access
in exacdy the same way it was opened
for writing. In fact, due to the nature of
random files, you can actually be read-
ing from and writing to the file with only
the one OPEN command.
Following the OPEN command you
then have to add a FIELD statement.
Last month covered these two points
extensively, so I won't repeat much
here, except to say that the field com-
mand may have different string names,
justthatthenumberand sizeof the fields
must correspond.
You could go something like:
OPEN "R",#3,"DF0:Test/Fre(f,128
FIELD #3,100 astesl1$, 28 as test2$
test1$="Hello"
test2$=There"
PUT #3,1
CLOSE #3
OPEN u R",#3;DF0:Test/Fred",128
FIELD #3,100 as foo8$, 28 as foo9$
GET #3,1
PRINT foo8$
PRINT foo9$
CLOSE #3
for instance. BASIC doesn't care what
NAMES you assign to the strings, just
that the same type of fielding must be
employed on the way out as on the way
in, otherwise you'll get garbage results.
The main thing to check is that the field
sizes correspond.
How many records?
It is often very useful to figure out
how many records we have stored in the
random file. This is necessary to avoid a
GET beyond the end of the file. If your
database only has 24 records stored and
you try to GET record number 25, then
things will not work as you expect!
Fortunately, it' s a very simple procc-
dure . S ince y ou already know the size of
each record, you can calculate the number
of records available by opening the ran-
dom file in normal serial style, getting
the LOF value (number of bytes in the
file) and dividing it by the record size.
The next example will show how.
Modifying fields
Because when you open a file in
random mode the system allows you to
both read from and write to it, it's a
VERY easy process to grab a record,
have a look at it, modify it and resave it,
all in the matter of a few lines. Let's say
we have a very simple data file with two
fields stored: an object description and
price. Owing to lower interest rates we
are going to reduce the price of our stock
by 15% across the board. A simple
program may look like:
OPEN T,#3,"DH1:Data/StockLisf ,4096
length%=LOF(#3)
CLOSE #3
records%=length%/32
OPEN "R",#3,"DH1;Data/StockUsr,32
FIELD #3,28 as desc$,4 as priceS
FOR k%=1 TO records%
GET#3,k%
outprice$=price$
price%=VAL(outprice$)
price%=price%"0.85
LSET price$=STR$(price%)
PUT #3,k%
NEXTk%
CLOSE #3
From that you see the benefit of the
RANDOM access at work. Note that we
didn't have to alter anything with the
description. It was read out of the file,
but not touched when we modified the
other field. This is how it all works.
Notice how I took the suing priceS
into another variable called outprice$?
The reason for this is how BASIC disas-
sociates a fielded variable from a pro-
gram variable if you modify itat all. I am
grabbing die numeric value of price%
from the string outpriceS. If I'd tried
going price%=VAL(price$) I would
have had problems.
Also the above version is extremely
simplistic, because our price is only 4
characters long, and an integer. In real
life you are probably looking at a deci-
mal value for this, where only 2 places
are significant!
The program does need a few safety
catches. What, for instance if the file had
not existed on disk? You need to warn
your users of such cases, and this can be
done by trapping the error with an ON
ERROR GOSUB command. I'll leave
error checking for now, because it's got
a whole article devoted to it the month
after next. Suffice to say while you are
in the error subroutine you can let your
users know of the problem, and then if
the error isn't major you can RESUME
back to a certain part of the program.
Maybe you could give them another
chance to enter the filename, orpresson
without reference to the file, and so on.
It gets very involved when you start
thinking of all the things a user can do
'wrong'.
Our Address Book
Program
Let's now completely re- write the
address book program using a random
ACAR 50
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file. We'll include options to view the
entries and edit them if need be. Here's
where you'll see the power of random
access files at work.
Also notice how I'm using subrou-
tines of code that appeared last month.
This method is extremely useful. I now
don'thave to write completelynew code
to open the file and field it: I simply cut
and paste from the older programs, sav-
ing heaps of time. Naturally it pays to
read what you are pasting in, because
while the process is the same, small
things such as the names of a few vari-
ables may change.
I think I'll add error checking to this
one. Let's only check for one error
though: file not found (error number 53
- so common, I can still remember the
error number).
If there's a problem finding the file,
the program will ask the user if he first
wants to create one. This is for those
readers who don't have the random file
wecreatedlastmonth. (Eitheryou missed
the issue, or lost your files). See how it
cleverly resumes back to themain menu,
enabling you to then carry on as normal.
There's one thing I'll add about error
checking. Comment the line out when
you are typing the program in. If you
include error checking, it will error trap
your typos! It's more convenient to let
the error occur and see which line it was.
Refer now to the program listing, or
read on.
Reader Questions
Less Emphatic Matching
Ben Werbowyj of Rankin Park, NSW
was working on a simple number guess-
ing game which did a bit of interaction
with the user, such as asking them
whether to try again or not. He writes:
"I've gotten the program working
pretty well, but I can't get it to accept
both "y" and "Y" and the same for "n"
and "N". By this I mean the difference
is the capitals."
Well, Ben, that's really easy. There
are two ways out of this:
aS="°
WHILE a$oT AND aSo"y" AND a$o"N n
ANDa$o"n" aS=INKEY$
WEND
That tests for all possible incidences
of how the user can press Y or N.
However you may prefer to use another
command, the UCASE$() construction,
which simply takes a string and converts
it all to uppercase. This is just the ticket
for making suing comparisons less strin-
gent. There are two ways around this:
aS=UCASE$(INKEY$)
WHILE aS<>T AND a$o°N"
a$=UCASE$(INKEY$)
WEND-
alternatively:
a$=""
WHILE UCASE$(a$)o"Y" AND
UCASE$(a$)o"N"
a$=INKEY$
WEND
The first example here will run a little
faster than the second because the
WHILE statement is testing two pre-
existing strings, and not having to do a
little bit of work before the comparison
is made. In all, it would be hard to pick
between the two methods, however, so
use whatever you feel like.
Cartesian co-ordinates
Jim Manning of Sussex Inlet, NSW
wrote to say:
"What beats me is all that mathemali-
cal jargon, I just don't understand how
they work it all out, particularly in re-
spect to graphics."
There isn't all that much math in-
volved in BASIC, Jim. Most of the time
all you are doing is incrementing a
counter, and perhaps a few simple func-
tions like multiplying the counter by a
constant and comparing the result with
something else. ,
However for graphics one has to be
familiarwithcartesianco-ordinates, that
is, the location of points in an X- Y plane.
(Or with 3D graphics, in an X-Y-Z
plane). To animate aball flying through
the air one has to be able to calculate its
parabolic path at certain instances in
time, calling for a bit of Newton' s laws,
and the formula for a parabola. The
program then uses the time variable to
calculate snapshots of the path and prints
up the ball at various locations from a
formula worked out.
You could include a look-up table in
the code to find out where the ball would
be every tenth of a second and then print
it up in that spot, but it's far easier to
calculate the locations on the fly from
the formula.
So if you want to code graphics, then
a bit of elementary Descartes is neces-
sary. Try to find an old year 9 or 10
mathematics textbook lying around, and
check out the relevant sections.
File Not Found
A few users mentioned they couldn' t
get the file access to work in the example
programs. Every time they tried to ac-
cess the file called addfile$, they'd get
an error.
One user even specified that he had to
put inverted commas around addfileS to
get the program working, resulting in a
file called "addfile$" on his disk ! Putting
inverted commas around a string vari-
able will make basic think it's a string
constant instead. Strings can be any
ascii characters (example a file name).
I think you've all missed the point of
these two lines:
'Change as necessary
Path$="DH0:BASIC/Wot1<r
The CHANGE AS NECESSARY bit
was something I didn' t spend much time
on. I thought you'd be able to figure out
that you needed to change it to the
directory where you store your BASIC
files. Unfortunately, one reader sent me
a disk with his program. The line read:
Path$="DF1:BASIC/Wori<f
yet, nowhere on the disk was a direc-
tory called 'BASIC which had a direc-
tory called 'Work' in it. The program
didn't have a chance!
Please ensure that what you specify
as the path$ is an EXISTING directory
somewhere on your disks. It's going to
be different for everyone, so what I do is
simply make it the first line of the pro-
gram, and then 'calculate' the names of
files by adding this at the start.
Soifyouweretryingtoopen 'Freddat'
and you had your path$ set to be
'DFO:AmigaBasic/Progs/' then we could
simply go:
thefile$=path$+"Fred.dat"
PRINT thefile$
and the result would be
DFO:AmigaBasic/Progs/Fred.dat
ACAR 52
Get the idea now? I was initially
worried about the code itself, and
checked for errors like crazy. But it was
a simple case of me assuming too much
on the part of the programmer. If you see
a comment that says 'change as neces-
sary', then I'm leaving it up to you to
work out what's required.
I will never 'spoon-feed' you in these
articles, that would defeat tfieirpurpose.
If you are going to program, then you not
only have to leam about the language
you are programming in, but also about
die operating system of the machine you
are programming on. I'd suggest you
keep up with Andrew Leniart's CLI
Tutorials for more info about DOS.
Also, justkeep an eye on me. I'm not
an AmigaBASIC programmer, I'm a
GFA-BASIC programmer. There are
subtle differences. One I can immedi-
ately think of is the 'END IF' command,
which in GFA is one word 'ENDIF. If
you should see an 'ENDIF slip into
some of my examples here, then make
the conversion for me, okay? I try hard
to avoid things like this, but I've typed
'ENDIF' a lot more times than I've ever
typed 'END IF'!
It should be noted that all programs
are compiled, run and tested before they
are submitted for publication, however,
so it's more likely to be a typo some-
where rather than an error in my code.
Next Month
AmigaBASIC allows you to access
the peripherals attached to your Amiga
in exactly the same way as opening disk
based files. So next month we'll be
seeing how to talk to the printer, modem,
and other peripherals (including CLI
and SHELL windows). We'll develop a
simple program for printing out pro-
gram docs so that page breaks are taken
at the right places.
As usual, you can write to me at:
Peter DeanePO Box 13WARATAH
NSW 2298.
By the way, if you want a personal
reply, then please enclose a stamp. If
you send me a disk, then please enclose
90c worth of stamps if you want it back.
If you have a modem, you can call my
BBS (Inquestor) on (049) 67-6808, or if
you login to a Fido BBS near you, you
GOSUB addfile.prep
can now netmail me on 3:622/491.
GOSUB drop.out
GOSUB addlile.shut
Also I keep up with the Fido echo
AUST_AMIGA, where general queries
ENDIF
can be posted and you'll also see a
number of other ACAR contributors
IFehoiceS="B'THEN
GOSUB howmany
lurking about. Even Andrew (when they
let him)!
IFnum.records%<1THEN
PRINT
PRINT There are no records in the file
PRINT
INPUT "Press Return ";xx$
GOTO main
ENDIF
' Program: AddressBook.4
tecord%=1
' Author : Peter Deane
•
'Version: 1.0
WHILE record%<=num.records%
'Date : 9 Dee 91
GOSUB addlite.prep
GOSUB pick.in
GOSUB show.rec
' Change as necessary
GOSUB addfile.shut
PRINT
Path$="DHO:BASICAVorW
PRINT "Enter: number lo change"
PRINT" 'N' lor next"
' set error trap
PRINT" 'Q' to quit
INPUT" ";opt$
' NOT YET! Do it when the code is working, not
opl$=UCASE$(opt$)
' while typing this in.
opt%=VAL(opt$)
ON ERROR GOTO woopseydaisey
IFopt$="Q"THEN
record%=num.records%+500
' We keep control ol the record number by the global
ENDIF
' index 'record%'. This always tells the program what
' it's up to. Always pay special attention to how
IFopl$="N"THEN
' record% is managed.
record%=record%+1 END IF
record%=0
IF opt%>0 AND opt%<8 THEN
IF opt%=1 THEN
PRINT "Name : ";
main:
LINE INPUT nam$
ELSEIFopt%=2THEN
PRINT "Street Address:";
CLS
LINE INPUT addressS
PRINT "Main Menu"
ELSEIFopt%=3THEN
PRINT
PRINT "Suburb : ";
PRINT "<A>dd to database"
LINE INPUT town$
PRINT "<B>rowse database"
ELSEIFopt%=4THEN
PRINT
PRINT "State : ";
PRINT - <Q>uit"
LINE INPUT states
PRINT
ELSEIFopt%=5THEN
PRINT TIMES;" Choose your weapon: ";
PRINT "Postcode : ';
INPUT choices
LINE INPUT postcodes
choice$=UCASES(choice$)
ELSEIFopt%=6THEN
PRINT "Area Code :';
IF choiceSo'Q" AND choiceSo'A' AND
LINE INPUT std$
choiceSo'B" THEN
ELSEIFopt%=7THEN
GOTO main
PRINT "Phone Number :";
ENDIF
LINE INPUT phoneS
ENDIF
IFchoice$="Q'THEN
END
GOSUB addfile.prep
ENDIF
GOSUB drop.out
GOSUB addfile.shut
IFchoice$="A'THEN
1
ENDIF
GOSUB howmany
■
record%=num.records%+1
WEND
GOSUB asklor.rec
ACAR 53
END IF
GOTO main
asklor.rec:
PRINT
PRINT "Record # ";record%
PRINT
PRINT 'Name : ■;
LINE INPUT namS
PRINT "Street Address: ";
LINE INPUT addressS
PRINT "Suburb : ';
LINE INPUT town$
PRINT "State : ";
LINE INPUT state$
PRINT "Postcode :";
LINE INPUT postcodes
PRINT "Area Code :";
LINE INPUT stdS
PRINT "Phone Number : ";
LINE INPUT phoneS
RETURN
show.rec:
PRINT
PRINT "Record #";record%
PRINT
PRINT "<1> Name : ";nam$
PRINT "<2> Street Address: ";addressS
PRINT "<3> Suburb : ";townS
PRINT "<4> State : ";stateS
PRINT "<5> Postcode : ";postcode$
PRINT "<6> Area Code : ";std$
PRINT "<7> Phone Number : ";phoneS
RETURN
howmany:
OPENT,#99,pathS+"Address.ran",240
length%=LOF(99)
num.records%=length%/l28
CLOSE #99
RETURN
addfile.prep:
OPEN "R".#2,pathS+"Address.ran",128
FIELD #2, 24 AS naS,40 AS ad$,24 AS tn$,4 AS
st$,6 AS pcS,4 AS arS,8 AS ph$,18 AS dm$
RETURN
addtile.shut:
CLOSE #2
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RETURN
drop.out:
LSET na$=nam$
LSET ad$=address$
LSETtn$=town$
LSETsl$=sla!e$
LSET pc$=poslcode$
LSET ar$=std$
LSET ph$=phone$
LSETdm$='
PUT #2, record /.
RETURN
pick.in:
GET #2,record%
nam$=na$
address$=ad$
townS=tn$
staieS=s!S
postcode$=pc$
sld$=at$
phone$=ph$
RETURN
woopseydaisey:
PRINT
IFERR=53THEN
PRINT "Woopsl File not found."
PRINT "We were looking in the ";path$;"
directory."
PRINT
INPUT "Would you like to create one ";will$
will$=LEFTS(UCASE$(willS),1)
' or it you like will$=UCASE$(LEFTS,will$,1 ))!
IFwill$="Y"THEN
record%=1
GOSUB askfor.rec
GOSUB addlile.prep
GOSUB drop.out
GOSUB addfile.shut
RESUME main
END IF
PRINT
ELSE
PRINT "Unknown error."
PRINT "Error number: ";ERR
PRINT
END IF
INPUT "Press Return "pc<$
END
lumn
lntroducingMelbourneradiojournalist,Arthur(Artie)Stevens,
who takes over the column from Owen James. Artie is known
to Melbourne radio listeners as the voice of Melbourne Traffic
at Radio Station KZFM.
It's not that you're stepping into the
shoes of someone else that's the
problem, it's the size and quality of
the shoes. I for one see Owen James'
shoes as hard ones to fill. Nevertheless,
here I am.
Hopefully the GEOS column will
continue to go from strength to strength.
In the December edition of ACAR,
Owen touched on desktop publishing
using GeoPuWMandformethat'shome
territory.
In the last three years I've been pro-
ducing Radio Raves, the in-house maga-
zine for KZFM. That's given me the
opportunity to experiment with
GeoPublish at length.
We've printed editions using aMPS-
802 printer, MPS-803, and lately using
a LaserWriter courtesy of Laureny
Rinalde and LaserMode. Sadly this fa-
cility is no longer available.
It's up to you how professional a
finish you'd like to your magazine.
You're only limited by your imagina-
tion and the cost of printing. There are
limitations to GeoPublish too, but for
the price, it's a value-plus way of getting
into desktop publishing.
With GeoPublish you'redealing with
a fairly large program by C64 standards.
The 99k fde fits on a single 1541 format-
ted disk, although you're not left with
too much space for your magazine -
some 66k in the balance. If you have a
second drive available (beg or borrow
one), then so much the better.
If you have a RAM expander like
GeoRam 512, then GeoPublish really
flies. If after all that you still only have
one drive available, keep in mind all the
things you'll need on the disk with
GeoPublish. Like Desktop for example
(vl.2 uses 18k, vl.3 takes up 20K and
v2.0 uses 30k), like fonts, at least one,
maybe two. I use LW-Roma (Ilk), even
when printing on a Dot Matrix it looks
better than Roma (8k). You'll need your
printer driver (Ik) and if you're going to
use graphics you' 11 need the Photo Man-
ager (v2.0 10k) however this can be left
on a separate workdisk with your graphic
"photo albums".
Plan Ahead
FirsUy , sit down with a pen and paper
and design your magazine. I know that
sounds like you're defeating the object
of desktop publishing, but it's not. You
really need to have some idea of what
sort of layout you have in mind before
you start.
If that all seems too much like hard
work then you could access the master
libraries of your GeoPublishmastcr disk.
ACAR 55
There are three libraries available - 60
dpi, 72 dpi and 80 dpi printers, check
your printer manual to find which to use
(example MPS-803 used 60 dpi, MPS-
802 used 80 dpi).
These libraries can be accessed from
within GeoPublish, whilst you're in
MASTER PAGE mode.
Decide whether your magazine will
have both left and right pages (printed
both sides), or right hand pages only.
KISS
Your layout must after all be read-
able, otherwise who's going to read it?
So Keep It Simple, Stupid! Try not to
crowd the page with information. A
lightloading of text, headingsand graph-
ics is best - evenly balanced.
On the subject of graphics, do you
have access to a graphics library? I use
Newsroom, Print Shop and PrintMaster
clip art which I've imported over to
Geos Photo Albums using Graphics
Grabber - available on Deskpack and
Deskpackplus. Usually there'sagraphic
to suit the occasion, if not, there's al-
ways GeoPaint to modify ones or to
create a new one.
Then there's the tide of your maga-
zine. It needs to be relevant to the subj ect
matter, oratleastconvey amessage that
deals with the theme. My magazine
Radio Raves is just that, 10 pages of
radio news. This magazine's tide Aus-
tralian Commodore and Amiga Review
says it all too.
Checklist
1. Keep it simple.
2. Develop a distinctive tide or mast
head.
3. Don't use all desktop publishing
features on every page.
4. Choose typefaces with care, do not
use too many typestyles. There's noth-
ing worse than a magazine that looks
like a ransom note.
5. Balance pages, not toomany graph-
ics or headings on a page.
6. Break up large areas of text (grey
areas). Pages of solid text can be daunt-
ing to many readers.
7. Use two or three columns of text
rathet than one: it' s easier to "scan down"
a narrow column.
Don' t proofread the whole thing your-
self (particularly if you wrote it all). Get
someone else to proofread it. There's
nothing more annoying than typo's and
misspelled words.
As forputting your GeoPublish docu-
ment together, keep in mind the two
modes you'll be using.
Layout and Graphic
Layout is used to import Geo Write
documents into your GeoPublish maga-
zine. If contributors use other word proc-
essors, convert them across to GeoWrite
with Text Grabber first All documents
should be set to the widest possible
margin (GeoPublish will adjust them as
needed) and work out beforehand
whether you'll want your documents to
full justification or left only.
Graphics mode is used purely for
headlines and comment text Don't try
and assemble a page of text in Graphic
Mode. Read your GeoPublish manual.
Step through each section carefully and
practise. If you're not sure about some-
thing you've read, try it and see what
happens.
There are some minor errors in the
manual (certainly the copy I have), but
nothing that a litde bit of experiment and
thought can't fix.
When you've finished and released
your magazine, don't forget to send a
copy to me at AC AR. We may be able to
include a best-of gallery somewhere
down the track.
Letters
Just one this month, most people still
getting over the summer holidays.
Weisiek Szydlowski of Pymble NSW
writes:
"I have been a GEOS fan since vl.O
appeared in 1 986. My daughter ( 1 3, and
I share our 64 using various GEOS
applications.
"RecenUy I purchased the Cockroach
Graphics Utility package. This is some-
thing for serious GEOS users - espe-
cially those with an interest in computer
graphics.
"Graphics Utility v2 allows the cap-
ture and disk storage of screen graphics.
Four types of graphic can be captured.
"• bitmapped hires screens - as DOO-
DLE files
"• bitmapped multicolour screens- as
KOALA files
" • non-bitmapped or character screens
- SCR files
"• sprite graphics - SP files
"Before saving to disk, the frozen
screen can be processed, background
and foreground colours can be changed.
Also saved files can later be converted to
Cockroach Compressed Graphics for-
mat, which is used to produce a hard
copy in grey scale or full colour.
"The File Conversion Utility con-
verts above files to different formats like
GeoPaint, Print Shop, Doodle,
C ADPAK etc. The captured screens can
then be edited using editors within Print
Shop and Newsroom and the finished
graphics can be transferred to GEOS
using the Graphics Grabber.
"When I use GeoPublish I find it very
difficult to handle. I probably need a
RAM disk and second disk drive. I am
also looking for an Epson or Star printer
driver using the GeoPrint cable and
multiple strike. Can anyone help me?"
Thanks for the letter Wiesiek. I felt a
touch of deja-vu as you mentioned your
problems with GeoPublish and a single
disk drive. It's no fun at all without that
second drive or a RAM expander. And
as far as editing your graphics within
Newsroom or Print Shop. I can't help
thinking you're causing yourself more
work than necessary.
The GeoPaint edit facility leaves both
Newsroom and Print Shop editors for
dead, so transfer your graphic straight
across, then work on it.
Back next month with more of
GeoPublish and soon we' 11 start to look
at GeoBasic as an alternative way to
program. If you've already written a
GeoBasic program or application send a
copy in.
The GEOS Column c/- ACAR PO
Box 288, Gladesville, NSW 2111 (in-
clude a stamped self-addressed enve-
lope if you'd like a personal reply).
Until next month, keep on GEO-ing.
ACAR 56
Arcade Garrfe
Help-Line
If you're an arcade-styled game fa-
natic you'll be pleased to know that
there's now a help line just for you.
Similar to the Adventurer's Realm, hint
sheets, tips and cheats are available to
those who send a self-addressed enve-
lope. If you'd like to know more, or are
in desperate need of some gaming help,
write to RED VENOM, PO BOX 362,
HORNSBY NSW 2077.
Geos PD
For GEOS users, geoPD is now avail-
able. It contains around 25 of the best
utilities, applications, fonts and printer
dri vers around. To get your copy, send a
cheque or money order (made payable
to Owen James) for $6 to me care of The
ACAR. Allow three weeks for delivery.
MAIL
Out of Memory?
First out of the mailbag this month
comes Bradley Dowling, who writes:
"Dear Owen, I have been buying
ACAR for about a year now, and I look
forward to your C64 column every
month. I am an amateur programmer
and I am always looking for new tips and
tricks.
"I have always been curious (and
frustrated) at when I load a game from
disk and then try and save it to tape, the
computer always gives an "OUT OF
MEMORY" error. Why does it do this
and is there any way of getting around it?
I thought you might be able to trick the
computer into thinking it's got more
memory available than it really has.
Also, if you could give me any other
useful tips or tricks I would greatly
appreciate it"
Theproblemcouldbeoneofanumber
of things. Since you are able to at least
try to save it, I will presume you are
referring to either a BASIC program or
a ML program with a BASIC line con-
taining the SYS call.
What I find usually helps in these
situations is a simple reset and un-new.
If you have a cartridge such as
WarpSpeed or The Final Cartridge m,
this is a simple task of just pressing the
reset button and then using the OLD
command. If you don ' t own a cartridge,
try SYS64738toreset,andPOKE 2050,8
[RETURN] SYS 42291 to recover the
program. Now attempt to save.
Controlling Radio Tip
Warning
Rod Gasson writes with a warning to
anyone who has attempted the 'Control-
ling a Radio' tip submitted by Glenn
Jones and printed in the December issue.
"Glenn describes the user port pins as
being labelled A, B,C, D,E etc along the
top, and pins 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc along the
bottom of the edge connector. In fact
this is the opposite of the true situation
(pins 1, 2, 3 on top and pins A, B, C on
the bottom).
"As a consequence anyone attempt-
ing this method otcontrolling an exter-
nal device the way described will at best
be greeted with no success at all, and at
worse will cause the C64 to reset (pins 1
and 3 are the earth and reset lines).
"Besides this, should a user be smart
enough to use the correct pins (A and C)
they could get into more serious trouble.
"The C64 is only able to supply (or
source) a MAXIMUM of 100m A (milli-
amps) via the user port. This 100mA is
the TOTAL amount of all external de-
vices, including cartridges.
"Glenn has obviously been lucky,
and theradiohe usedrequires somewhat
less. He probably doesn't have a car-
tridge or REU plugged in, which can
draw almost 100mA themselves.
"If this current is exceeded by any
significant amount the internal fuse in
the computer will blow, and hopefully
no further damage will result. However
the user port is connected directly to the
CIA chip, and excess current could eas-
ily damage this chip, which is expen-
sive. A worse scenario is that if this
current is exceeded slightly the fuse
won't blow, but the 5v regulator in the
power supply will slowly "cook" itself
and eventually go short circuit. When
this happens 12 volts will be supplied to
ALL IC's inside the computer. This will
cause the RAM chips to INSTANTLY
disintegrate, usually the fuse will then
blow (too late of course), but often it can
destroy any of the other chips, such as
SID, VIC, CIA's etc. etc. as well.
"You should also point out that under
NO CIRCUMSTANCES should an ex-
ternal device be connected to the user
port without some form of buffering or
current limiting. A simple Ik resistor is
all that is needed to limit the current to
a safe level.
"This can be reduced to about
lOOohms if only one output is used,
however by using lkresistorsall outputs
can be used, and even if all external
devices went short circuit the 100mA
rating would still not be exceeded. The
other reason I suggest Ik resistors is that
if an external device requiresmore power
than can be driven via a Ik resistor then
that device really should have its own
source of power anyway.
"Hooking the C64 up to the 'outside'
world is fun and shouldn't be discour-
aged, but user beware; Play it safe and
prepare for the worst possible scenario."
ACAR
r^ °
or?
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walker l 2Mb
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Wordprocessing and Utilities
Wordwright Wordprocessor
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Rotating Digitised Head
Computer Aided Design
DataEasy, bBase II, HomeManager & H-Dial
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Demonstration
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ORDER FORM - Post to P.O Box 288, Gladesville
Name
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Signature. ,
PRODUCTS
Thanks for the warning, Rod. I'll
make sure these types of projects are
more thoroughly checked before being
printed in future.
Parallel Printer
Connection
J. McMames, of Alice Springs NT,
writes:
"Dear Owen, Keep up the good work.
I would like to know what I need to
connect aC64 to an Epson LX400 printer
and where it is possible to obtain the
connections."
If you'reaGEOSuser, getthegeoPrint
cable. This is useful for printing from
GEOS to just about any dot matrix
printer. For more general printing you'll
need a parallel interface. These range
from $75 for a simple and straight for-
ward interface, to $275 for one that will
do everything except hang out your
washing.
C64 SOFTWARE
EXTENSIVE RANGE OF PUBLIC
DOMAIN SOFTWARE FROM UK,
USA, AUSTRALIA.
EACH DISK CONTAINS MANY
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UTILITIES - TUTORIALS
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Please lick your preference(s):
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An General
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CATALOGUE
Name: _
Address:
.PostCode:
Post To: BRUNSWICK PUBLICATIONS
PO BOX 458
BONDIJUNCTION NSW 2022
As to where they can be obtained,
check out the mail order advertisements
in ACAR. One that springs to mind is
Quadrant Computers.
C16/Plus4 Software?
Robert J. Alyari, of Frankston VIC,
writes:
"Dear Owen, I own both a Commo-
dore 64 and a Commodore Plus/4.
"I have heaps of software for both
computers and each gets its fair share of
use.
"I found a Commodore shop in
Cranboume, not far from where I live,
that still stocks afair amount of software
for the C167Plus4. I have most of the
titles on offer in this shop, and was
wondering if you knew of any retailers
in Australia that may have some soft-
ware, books, and peripherals for the
C16/Plus4 hidden away? The thing I am
really after is a Plus4 Programmer's
Reference Guide.
"Also, what about Public Domain
software for the C16/Plus4. Surely some-
one must have some? Please help. I
would like to hear from anyone who still
uses their C16/Plus4, and would appre-
ciate it if you could possibly put an
advert in the magazine please.
"Ihaveaninterestin soundand graph-
ics, and also with robotics. My first
question, is there anyway to connect up
a black and white video camera (it has
no sound), to the C64 and be able to store
the pictures I video on disk, for later use,
like printing out or editing?
"Also, I would like to connect up a
robot I have built to the C64 so that it can
control it etc. Unfortunately, I cannot
find an interface, like the old Vic-Rel, to
do this job. Can you still buy something
like this and if so, where from?
"Lastly, does the PD1 disk you ad-
vertised in ACAR have the Message
Creator on it? If not, where can I obtain
a copy of this program?"
I haven't seen Plus4 software avail-
able anywhere for years. Has anyone
had a recent sighting or can help with
Plus4 PD software? Contact me.
Yes, you certainly can use a black
and white video camera for capturing
and editing images. Video Byte III is the
name of the device, and it can even
capture images in real time (well, al-
most). There was a full review printed in
the April 1990 edition of ACAR.
I haven't seen any interfaces such as
the one you are referring to for quite a
while. If you're handy with a soldering
iron and know a little about electronics,
you might like to get hold of the books
How to Make Computer Model Control-
lers or How to Make Computer Control-
led Robots (both published by Osbome) .
They explain how to connect and con-
trol external devices from the C64, Vic
20, Spectrum and BBC computers in
layman's terms. Can anyone else offer
some help or advice?
Yes, the PD1 disk contains the Mes-
sage Creator program, along with over
25 other useful programs and utilities.
Both PD1 and the User Software Disk
are available for only $6 each (make
cheques payable to Owen James).
New Direction
Glenn Jones, of Buderim QLD, writes:
"I think ACAR has strolled down a
track from which it cannot return - the
track of the Amiga. Maybe it is time to
seriously consider making this maga-
zine The Australian AmigaReview BUT
also producing a smaller, maybe not so
glossy Commodore Review. This would
contain all of the present articles. You
(or we) could write longer and more
varied articles. If there were the two
separate magazines, the C64 readers
would get exactly what they want and
the Amiga users would not have to read
any more letters like this. Not only
would there be the normal three articles
plus game cheats and BBS listings, there
could be more electronics and user-port
connections. Hopefully it would become
a more reader-friendly magazine, with a
lot of encouragement for readers to write
articles. It would become more like a
user-club magazine that was nation wide
instead of little bits in between the Amiga
articles."
Glenn' s ideas have been suggested to
me by numerousreaders. Unfortunately,
it is not as simple as just 'creating an-
othermagazine'. Magazines costmoney
to produce. You've got payments for
ACAR 60
continued on page 62
TALK TO YOUR
S3
EVISION
per, Grace Bros, Norman Ross, Harvey Norman,
ng Lee and following dealers
iW_: The Hard Disk Cafe, Shop 4 Computers, Fre
^ >me Demo, Casino Computers, Orana Home Busine
Centre, Leeton Audiotronics, Chanticleer Video
Computer Centre.
Vj£: High Technology, Maxwell's, Cranbourne
Computers, Webbs Electronics, Jennings Discount
"■-.mputa Magic, Roylane, Frank Day & Associates,
Albans Home Entertainment
i: United Computers, Tropical TV Services,
ty Computer Centre, Active Computers
i: Harris Scarfe, Pick'n'pay Hypermarket
S: Angus & Robertson, Quadrant Computer Cent
e Floppy Shop
i: Hedlam Computers, Narrogin Computers,
■nputer Corner, Regional Computers
le Commodore (02) 428 7777 for a H
writers, editors and any other 'in-house'
staff, immense costs to get it published
and printed, and then distribution costs
to get it into the newsagencies.
To keep the cost to the end buyer
down to a minimum, magazines must
rely on the sponsorship of advertisers.
Have a quick look at the advertisements
in this month's ACAR. As I'm sure
you ' 11 see, most of the advertising dollar
comes from retailers and distributors of
Amiga products. There are just not
enough advertisers to support a C64
magazine. The idea of a user-club styled
magazine or newsletter sounds slighdy
more promising.
The Australian Amiga User Associa-
tion produces something along these
lines for its members, distributing cop-
ies by mail. Production costs have been
kept to a minimum, but it has still re-
tained a fairly high standard of quality.
Of course, there is always the prob-
lem of contributions. Even many Amiga
magazines have trouble getting a steady
supply of contributions. Would a C64
newsletter do any better? Let's hear
some feedback on this.
Help!
David Upton, of IsabellaPlains ACT,
writes:
"Dear Owen, I am writing this letter
in the first instance to once again con-
gratulate you on your column. I find it
very informative and useful and I have
found uses for some of the programming
tips and pokes.
"I enjoy using the computer for all
those things that we originally bought it
for (games, home budgeting, education
for the kids etc). Really, though, it's the
programming side of things that fasci-
nates me, but my knowledge is limited.
I have read the reference manual sup-
plied with the computer several times
and apart from magazine articles this
has so far been my only source of infor-
mation. I do realise that I really should
buy a C64 Programmer's Reference
Guide to further my understanding and
intend to do so hopefully in the not too
distant future. I find sprites to still be a
baffling subject and the miracles of
machine code/language is just that, a
miracle.
"I guess that what I'm really saying is
that if possible a little extra explanation
of some of the short programming rou-
tines would be appreciated. I have read
your reply to my first letter and under-
stand your predicament, but I'm not
after a complete rundown of every tiling,
justa little more information. Forexam-
ple the short routine published which
detected whether or not a disk is inserted
into a drive. I used it and it worked but
Ihaven'tgotacluehowitdoesit.Alittle
more .information on the program's
workings would have been nice so that
my (and probably others') knowledge
and understanding would benefit.
"It may be that this means that this
column needs to grow or it may herald
the beginning of a new column. Perhaps
you don' t have the time or perhaps there
isn' t the demand, but maybe there is the
demand and maybe just maybe there is
someone out there in C64 land who
would be interested in writing such a
column. After all, how often do letters
get printed complaining about the lack
of C64 coverage and how often does
ACAR reply that they would like to
increase thecoverage? If I had the knowl-
edgel for one would put up my hand but
it is lack of knowledge that prompted
this letter. If you think that a program-
ming column is a goer with yourself or
someone else at the helm, then perhaps
you might mention it in your column to
see if it has any support from the legions
of C64ers out there."
I'll try to include a general explana-
tion of how and why things work in the
future. The reason things don' t get cov-
ered in more detail is because of time
and space constraints. As I've said in the
past, I need feedback otherwise I don't
know what readers want. Thanks for
your letter, now let' s hear the rest of you
voice your opinion!
C64 Game Console Flops
Marc Walters, of Edgeworth NSW,
writes:
"Dear Owen, Here's some news you
might be interested in:
"The Commodore GS games console
(the C64 in a shoebox) has failed miser-
ably in Britain. Commodore UK made
80,000 GS units, and sold 15,000. From
an initial price of 99 pounds, it is now
being discounted to around 27 pounds.
Too little too late. Commodore should
have released the C64 console version
years ago before Nintendo and Sega got
a toehold in the West.
'T ve been hearing some nasty rumors
that Commodore Australia will stop sell-
ing the C64 here in 1992. Can you add
any light?
"Why do I get the feeling that the
GEOS and C64 Columns will soon be
bundled togetherand renamed 'The C64
Ghetto For Those Who Aren't Trendy
and Modern Enough to Own The Edi-
tor's and Advertisers' Favorite Type of
Computer"?
"It seems that us dedicated C64 own-
ers who are not prepared (in Phil
Campbell's words) to "take the leap to
Amiga land' are getting less and less
support. I would love to see a Reader's
Poll to find out the C64/ Amiga reader
balance. As with Edmund Tate (October
Entertainment mailbox), I was also in-
sulted by Phil Campbell's suggestion.
"In your October C64 Column there
was a bit about the radio station using a
C64 to do an in-house magazine. I re-
member a mate saying that one of the
stations near Newcastle uses a C64 for
its satellite linkups with Sydney. Ex-
actly what it did I can' t remember, but it
was something technical."
I, too, have heard rumors about Com-
modore Australia not continuing the
sale of the C64. Everyone I have spoken
to has agreed that this would be a stupid
mistake considering that the C64 is still
doing so well as an entry level family
computer. Sales of the C64 are even
continuing to increase, though still way
below the level it has enjoyed in better
times. I can' t see the C64 being dropped
in the forseeable future.
Combine the C64 and GEOS Col-
umns? Who, me? I won' t even write The
GEOS Column any more. Due to other
work commitments I just haven't the
time. GEOS readers shouldn't worry,
you'll still be looked after.
Well, it looks like my space is up. As
usual, I want to hear from you. Tell me
your problems, complaints, opinions and
advice. You can reach me at The ACAR,
PO Box 288, Gladesville 21 11.
Catch you next month.
ACAR 62
=^ News ^=^
Things are finally starting to hop in
the worldof Commodore's multi-media
marvel . Long awaited add-onsare flood-
ing in at an amazing rate, together with
classy new second generation software.
Read on for a glimpse at some of the
latest developments.
A-690 Coming Soon
Commodore's Gail Wellington has
confirmed that the A-690 CDTV add-on
has just passed stringent European tests
- the equivalent to the US FCC safety
and emission trials. A small scale pro-
duction run is now underway, with lim-
ited quantities shipping in the next few
months.
Price details are still sketchy, but
look for a price-point around a very
reasonable $699 or so.
CDTV/P add on pack
Turn your CDTV into a fully fledged
computer, says Commodore USA -
they ' re sell ing the CDTV/P add on pack,
with keyboard, mouse, and floppy disk
drive bundled together for around
US$300. We may not see the same deal
here, though as you' II see when you read
on, there are plenty of goodies now
available.
CDTV Business Pack
An enterprising US CDTV dealer has
put together a CDTV Business Pack. It' s
a CD featuring a full suite of business
programs - wordprocessor, database, and
graphics programs from New Horizons
software. Package it with a CDTV, key-
board, printer and disk drive and you've
got almost everything you need. Ru-
mour has it that Commodore Australia
have similar plans - CDTV, keyboard,
printer, modem and software for under
$2,000. If they're going to do it right,
they'll make sure it's a fax modem and
a bubble jet printer - won't you, Com-
modore?
Reviews
CDTV Keyboard
Adaptor
Here's a handy low cost gadget if
you've got an A-2000 keyboard lying
round the house. Sydney's Hard Disk
Cafe has a handy CDTV adaptor. This
nifty lead lets you run your keyboard
straight into the socket on the back of the
CDTV, which will then run as a fully
fledged Amiga compatible computer -
all for just $29.95.
The cream coloured cable is around
1.5 metres long. One one end there's a
socket for your keyboard lead, on the
otherendaplug that fits the socketon the
rear of your CDTV.
In use, the keyboard is flawless. Un-
less you're running a rare text-based
CDTV application, you'll probably be
running an Amiga disk booted through
an external drive. In this case, you' 11 find
a whole new freedom exploring the CLI
with yourkeyboard. I trieditout with the
Fish Disk Collection CD - a compact
disk containing 480 public domain Fish
Disks - with great results.
Without the keyboard you'll find the
PD disk is a bit of a nuisance. The best
you can do is use Diskmaster to copy the
files you want onto an external disk, then
run them on another Amiga. Now, how-
ever, all the programs on the disk are a
going concern - a mind expanding expe-
rience, with almost 400 megabytes to
explore.
As I said, if you've already got the
keyboard, the Hard Disk Cafe CDTV
Keyboard Adaptor is an essential pur-
chase.
"The Brick" - Infra-Red
Trackball and Joystick
Interface
Perhaps the most exciting piece of
CDTV gear I've tested this month is the
long awaited "brick", a combination
Our NEW personal computer magazine
Australian
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For the Home & Small Business User
Yes, yes, we know. The Amiga is the only machine for the discerning user. But
some of us have to use PCs and the vileness of MS-Dos. For such unfortunates we
have created PC Review which tries to clear up the mysteries, sort out the problems
and generally try to make the life of the PC user less of a total misery. Issue No 2
at your newsagents quite soon or subscribe to the usual address.
Every month from your newsagent $3.50
ACAR 63
CDTV Track-Ball/Joystick/Controller
track-ball/joystick/controller that re-
places or supplements your standard
CDTV remote controller.
The unit is about twice the size of the
regular controller, and certainly isn' t as
elegant - hence the nickname "brick"
when the unit was under development.
Two standard joystick sockets are
mounted on the front edge of the unit.
A golf-ball sized trackball sits on the
right hand side at the top, with two large
buttons along the upper rear edge of the
unit in easy reach. A numeric keypad
covers the left hand area of the top of the
case.
So what does it do? Number 1, it
makes moving the pointer around the
screen an absolute breeze. Compared to
the slow movements with the traditional
controller, the trackball really flies.
I tested the unit with MYPAINT, a
kids, colouring program, and the results
were great - far less frustration in mak-
ing menu selections and carrying out
operations. In drawing mode, it could
even manage smoothly curved lines, a
clear impossibility with the old arrow-
buttons.
Secondly, and just as importantly,
the Brick lets you use a standard Amiga-
style joystick. Let's face it - playing
Shadow oftlie Beast with the standard
CDTV controller just isn't a realistic
proposition. But now, with a joystick
beaming infra-red signals through the
brick, it's beast slaying at its very best.
There's no perceptible delay in sig-
nal transmission, and the action is fast
and smooth. It's a bonus when you're
playing standard Amiga games loaded
from external disk too - I played
Rodlands with no hitches at all, sitting
comfortably half way across the room.
Available from Sydney's Hard Disk
Cafe, (02) 979 5833 this unit is a worth-
while addition to your CDTV system.
With a RRP of $199, 1 recommend it.
Karaoke
All Night Long
In the last couple of years a strange
Japanese craze has stormed the pubs and
clubs of Australia - it's called Karaoke,
and it's lots of fun. Here's how it works.
A fully fledged Karaoke machine
features a large scale laser video disk
full of songs, complete with lyrics that
appear on the screen in perfect time with
the music. The idea is that carousing pub
patrons join in, or take turns to jump up
on the stage and sing along with the
microphone provided.
Stop and think about it for a minute.
Why can't we do the same thing with a
CDTV. Well, the short answer is, we
can. In fact, if you're running your CDTV
through a sound system with a spare
microphone input, you've got a fully
fledged Karaoke machine.
Sydney's Hard Disk Cafe have im-
ported a range of Karaoke disks, each
featuring around 18 popular songs. And
let me tell you - it' s fun . In fact, the most
fun r ve ever had with my CDTV.
Mind you, when I first tried it out I
looked pretty silly sitting in front of the
telly singing Raindrops keep falling on
my head at the top of my voice. But I just
couldn't help it. It's fun, fun, fun -
especially at a party.
Graphics and textquality on the disks
are good. Typically, a song will have
two or three fairly simple picture back-
grounds, often totally unrelated to the
lyrics, but nice to look at. Text appears
in quite legible lettering, which can
easily be read from across the room -
perfect for parties.
The CDTV is much more than a
Karaoke machine.
And I guess you could say that it's a
simple application for a complex piece
of gear. So what? You'll love it.
Available from Hard Disk Cafe (02)
979 5833. RRP $69.95.
USSR
Islands
Sakhalin
Japan
NEW Release - Japan World
ACAR64
All the latest news and views from the world of entertainment
Eye of the Beholder II -
Coming Soon
Electronic Arts (ph 075 911 388)
have announced the immincntrelease of
Tlie Legend ofDarkmoon, sequel to the
bestselling role playing game Eye of the
Beholder. The new title improves on the
original game with a richer storyline,
improved graphics with a spectacular
animated opening sequence, an updated
point-and-click user interface and a much
bigger adventuring area.
Legend ofDarkmoon will require 1
Meg of memory to run, and will retail for
$69.95.
New Newsletter
for C-64
Scott Logan, of 9 Collington St
Mansfield Qld, has launched a new C-64
Games Club, complete with a newslet-
ter and Bulletin Board access. The Club
64 BBS can be contacted on (07) 808
3839 Thursday to Sunday after 9pm.
The newsletter offers hints and tips,
brief gamereviews and a message-mates
service that puts you in touch with other
C-64 gamers. Don't expect a glossy,
impressive looking publication - in fact,
if s all produced on Scott' s C-64. But it' s
clear, effective, and a good resource if
you're looking for more support for your
C-64.
Game Music CD
Here's an interesting idea from our
friends across the ocean. UK firm Dig-
ital Dreams has produced an Audio CD
featuring all your favourite game themes.
First release is a disc featuring 52 min-
utes of Gremlin Graphics hottest hits,
and the second release provides 58 min-
utesof haunting sounds from Psygnosis.
No Australian distributor has been
announced, so you'll have to contact
Digital Dreams direct.
They'll cost around $40 for the pair,
and you can phone Digital Dreams in the
UK on 0602 754991.
Top Games
Next Month
Watch out next month for a full re-
view of Populous II, and the amazing
Populous Wo.
Mindscape Jimmy
White Snooker
Competition Winners
Good news for five lucky readers!
You' ve won acopy of the brilliant Jimmy
White's Whirlwind Snooker from
Mindscape.
First, here are the answers.
Jimmy is ranked third in the world.
He was 16 years old when he won the
English Amateur Championship.
Words that rhyme with snooker are
Bazooka, Euchre, Melaleuca and
spruiker.
The chalk is blue, and there are 22
balls used in a standard game of snooker.
So ... drum roll ... the winners are:
Mr D. Steward, of 28 Jordan Hill Rd,
North Hobart Tas 7000. Ms B.J., of 1
Burke St, St Arnaud Vic 3478. Mr David
Thompson, of 1 Raveushaw St,
Merewether NSW 2291. Mr Ian
McDonald, of 90a MacKenzieSt West,
Golden Square Vic 3555. Mr Robert
Davidson, PO410, Grccnsborough, Vic
3088.
Congratulations, and thanks to
Mindscape for the top-class prizes!
Exclusive Mindscape
February Competition
Okay, C64 readers, you keep com-
plaining that we don't love you. So this
month, Mindscape are giving away four
copies of the Commodore 64 version of
Captain Planet.
Programmed by the Software
Toolworks, the game features the star of
America's newest cartoon craze, the
Eco-Friendly Captain Planet, and prom-
ises to be a smash hit. So if you want
more C-64 competitions, make sure you
enter!
What do you have to do? It's easy.
Just make the biggest single word you
can by re-arranging the letters C A P T
AINPLANET, write iton the back
of an envelope, and send it to:
Mindscape Competition,
c/o Phil Campbell,
PO BOX 23,
Maclean NSW 2463.
The competition closes at the end of
February, so gel moving!
ACAR 65
IINTS
^— '*>
Send your hints and tips for Amiga
games to Phil Campbell, PO Box 23,
Maclean NSW 2463.
See the note below about hints sub-
mitted on disk.
Mean Streets and Police Quest
Brendan Santospirito was asking for
help with Police Quest and Mean Streets
in the January issue of ACAR. Well,
Brendan, good news. Mark Harris, from
158 Birrell St Bondi Junction 2022, has
completed both games and would be
happy to help out. Phone him on (02)
369 4920 before 1 lam or after 6pm, or
write to him at the address aboveand all
your problems will be solved.
Star Flight
Chris Mclean, of Palmwoods, Qld,
earned himself a free copy of the ACAR
Hints disk by sending the following tips
on disk. If you'd like to do the same, just
send me a nice pile of good advice on an
Amiga disk, with a stamped, self ad-
dressed envelope. What a deal!
Now, says Chris, if you would like a
heap of money in Star Flight, sell your
fuel. When it asks if you want to sell it
Amiga Public Domain Software
Over 3000 Disks to choose from
NO SUBSCRIPTION FEES
NO JOINING FEES
NO POSTAGE CHARGES
DISKS FROM $3
All orders shipped within 24 hours ol receipt.
Send $4.00 for 2 Disk Catalogue
or $19.95 tor Introductory Pack ot 8 Disks
which includes 3 Games Disks. 2 Utility Disks and
Master virus Killer Disk. Plus Disk Catalogue.
Catalogue Disk upgraded tree anytime with orders,
Stamped SAE II not ordering.
17BIT, FISH, AMA2, AMICUS, FAU8, NZAU9, TBAB, AMIQOZ.
MUSIC SOUND. APPLICATIONS, UTIimES, ANIMATIONS,
DEMO'S, GRAPHICS. PLUS OTHERS.
ALSO WE HAVE OUR OWN RANGE OF OVER 500 DISKS,
ALL SELF BOOTING AND READY TO USE.
Amiga Public Domain Centre
P.O. Box 435, St. Agnes SA 5097
Phone (08) 396 2163 Fax (08) 396 2163
We Accept Bankcard, Mastercard and VisaCard
all, say no. Now type in as much fuel to
sell as you want, even if you don't have
that much, and it will give you the
money for it without even taking the fuel
you have.
Leaderboard
Also from Chris comes this handy
golfing tip - unfortunately, it doesn't
work in real life! If you're stuffing up a
hole, simply hold down CTRL and press
h to go' to the next hole.
TV Sports Basketball
Chris is a basketball fan too! Using a
text editor, Chris says to load up the file
on disk 2 called "Rosters.Prt". This file
contains all the stats for each team. All
you have to do is find the team you want
to change, and change it.
Just remember that each individual
stat can only be 8 at the highest and that
the changes you make won't show up on
the in game rosters, but will be very
noticeable while playing.
Interphase
In the game type Fenny (remember
capital F) to access the object displayer.
Interceptor
Still the greatest flight sim of all time!
And for some extra missions, Chris sug-
gests you select free flight, then press '6',
7' ,'8' or '9' for the respective missions.
You'll have to work out what to do for
yourself, says Chris.
Also, leave the the disk write enabled
while loading to access all of the mis-
sions straight away.
Lotus Turbo Challenge 2
Graeme Beaven, of Wyong NSW is
also enjoying his free copy of the ACAR
Hints Disk in exchange for this little
gem. Here's what he says:
"Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 is a race
against a friend and also a race against
time. There are 8 courses to choose
from, ranging from road races to off road
circuits. For a nice effect try driving
under the trailer section of the semi
trailer as it crosses your path in the
Motorway Course!
Codes needed to play are:
FOREST COURSE - this loads without
codes.
NIGHT COURSE - type in TWILIGHT
FOG COURSE - type in PEA SOUP
SNOW COURSE - type in THE SKIDS
DESERT COURSE - type in PEACHES
MOTORWAY COURSE - type in LIV-
ERPOOL
MARSH COURSE - type in BAGLEY
STORM COURSE - type in E BOW"
Thanks Graeme, I've been looking
forward to trying out the advanced
courses, even though I'm still stuck in
level 1 . You're right - it's a superb game.
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Credit Cards Accepted - BC, V & MC
Send your entertainment letters to:
Phil Campbell, PO Box 23 Maclean
NSW 2463. Keep your scribblings short,
to the point, and entertaining, and more
than likely you'll see yourself in print!
A Bung Nobunaga? Oh No!
Dear Phil.I recently purchased
Nobunaga' s Ambition - although a bril-
liant and addictive game it's very slow
between screens. The answer was sim-
ple - purchase a hard drive then install
the game. This was unsuccessful.
I began by starting the program as
described on the reference card. But
when the hard drive is accessed, nothing
happens. After a second or two the
amount of free memory is decreased,
however in my case it stayed the same.
Next I attempted to "run" the pro-
gram from the CLI - this resulted in the
error message "oda/data_a/nobunaga
failed returncode 65535."
Back to the supplier (ComputerSpot
- Penrith).
Their response? "Don't know, I use
an IBM compatible myself .. . works fine
on my machine".
So much for Amiga support.
I also sent a letter to the software
house (Koei Corporation), no response.
I guess it's back to playing the game
the tedious way. That is, unless you or
one of your readers is able to help me.
David Dilkes
Mt Pleasant, NSW
Ed: Well, David, 1 guess there are
plenty of other Nobunaga players with
hard disks out there. Can anyone help
out?
Big Questions
Dear Phil.When will Test Drive ///be
out and how much will it cost?
Do you know anything about Wing
Commander on the Amiga 500?
Could you please compare the EBM
286 with say the Amiga 500, it would be
good to see what really goes on.
Daniel Ben
Horsliam, Vic
Ed: Any other impossible questions
while you're at it, Dan?
Seriously, though, I don't know when
to expect Test Drive III. You' 11 just have
to watch out for a review sometime in the
future.
Wing Commander, on the otlierliand,
is apparently due out in the next couple
of montlis. I'm not sure how they've
managed to convert it to run to the
Amiga, what with the superb 256 colour
VGA graphics and large scale
animations. On tlie PC it takes around 8
Megabytes of hard disk space - how are
we going to manage tliat on a typical
A500? Good questions, but we'll soon
find out. And let me tell you, it's an
absolutely superb game on tlie PC.
Comparing '286 based PC with an
Amiga 500 is difficult. It's probably
more relevant to talk about comparing a
' 386 tliese days, because PC compatible
prices have dropped dramatically. As
always, though, it depends on your op-
tion level. Super VGA graphics are su-
perior to the standard Amiga. An add-on
sound board like tlie SoundBlaster or
Ad-Lib aren't quite up to the Amiga
standard, but do a pretty good job. Most
PCs come with a liard disk as standard
- a great asset. But a PC can 't multi-task
like an Amiga, nor can it move great
hunks of graphical data as easily as the
Amiga, nor does it have liardware sprites.
In the game arena, the PC is great for
"epics" like Wing Commander, as well
as games with 3D vector graphics. The
Amiga is still tops in shoot-em-ups and
action style games, and in tlie area of
music and sound effects.
New Commodore?
Dear Phil, Recently reading ZZAP
64 1 noticed a forum type discussion on
the C-65 which Commodore are sup-
posed to be bringing out. Do you know
much about the supposed C-65? How
come I have not seen anything about it
in the AC AR? If it is real, could you do
a write up of it to let people know what' s
happening please.
Philip Mayer
Glen Innes, NSW
Ed: Commodore's Australian office
reports tliat tlie C-65 actually got to the
drawing board stage at Commodore
UK, then was scrapped. Supposedly an
advanced C-64 with blitter capabilities
and 4096 colours, the machine was a
nice idea - however, it's hard to see a
suitable market niche for an enhanced
64 when tlie price of tlie Amiga 500 is
now so low.
Tips for Sale
Dear Phil, I have just made a collec-
tion of disks for C64 users which I am
selling for $7.50 each. There are two
disks for Reset cartridge owners with
hints & cheats. There' s another disk for
Action Replay owners full of cheats.
Another caters for tape drive users of
cheats & hints and another contains
general hints and tips.
Steve Hedges
HDunfordSt
Whyalla Stuart SA, 5608
Ed: Tlianks Steve.
Readers can contact you direct if
they 're interested in your disks. But how
are tape drive users going to access their
disk?
Just Horsing Around
Dear Phil, I have been aregular reader
of your magazine for some time now and
I look forward to it each month.
I would appreciate any kind of pro-
gram that someone out there has on
horse racing (i.e. you input all the infor-
mation and it uses some kind of regres-
sion formula to work out what should
win).
I did have one which used the form
guide from the Australian newspaper
but I am unable to find it anymore.
Hopefully some one can help me.
Contact me on (079) 922719.
Mark Brand
Biloela QLD
Ed: If you can help, please give Mark
a call on the number above.
ACAR 67
Good Value for Money
Dear Phil, For the last four months
I've been buying a number of overseas
Amiga mags but after purchasing a copy
of last month's ACAR 1 was surprised at
the amount of content, info etc inside the
magazine. It's certainly good value for
money and has a lot more content that a
number of its glossy overseas counter-
parts.
Darren Mummery
Golden Grove SA
Ed: Thanksfortlie comments, Darren.
We're glad you think the mag is such
good value - and we agree!
C-64 Games Club
Dear Phil.I have just begun The C64/
128 Games Club and was wondering if
you could make a mention of it in your
Entertainment Letters Section. It seems
that there are still alot of C64/128 users
out there but it is just a matter of me
getting in touch with them.
The club is a nationwide club where
members can get in touch with each
other via a service called message mates.
There is also a bi-monthly newsletter.
The club is free but due to costs of
postage etc. I charge $6 per year, which
is quite reasonable due to the time &
money I have invested in it. Please ask
people to send a 45c stamp for more
info.
The club is also linked via CLUB-64
BBS on (07) 808-3839 on Thurs, Fri, Sat
& Sun after 9 Pm.
Scott Logan
Mansfield Brisbane, QLD
Ed: Hope the club goes well, Scott -
there are still plenty of C-64 users look-
ing for more support, so your services
should be warmly welcomed.
Send your authentic high scores to:
Phil Campbell,
PO Box 23 Maclean NSW 2463.
Please mark clearly whether your
scores are lor C-64 or Amiga.
And remember- NO CHEAT
MODES ALLOWEDI
AMIGA
ACTION FIGHTER 132,530 fl. Baka
ALERT 3S9.700 Robbie Baka
ARKANOID 1,052,610 Steven Walla
AMAZED 130,500 Chris Turnadge
BAAL 134,250 Davo
BATTLE COMMAND 334,200 Pels Cain
B. SQUADRON 99,999,999 A. Burbidge
BEYOND ICE PAL 67,626 (c) C.
Tumadge
BIO CHALLENGE 29,000 Aaron
Sandason
BLOCKOUT 65,261 Stephen Laik
BOMBJACK 382,310 David Dilkes
BUBBLE* 276,850 (c) Chris Toyne
B. BOBBLE 2,124,640 K. Renzenbrink
BUDOKAN 6J)Bmin (c) Mark Soreraen
BUGGY BOY 113,260 Powahouse Nick
CAR-VUP 484,122 Happy Hacker
CHASE HO 7,426,060 PowahouseNicfc
CONT. CIRCUS 4,815590 Dolly
C. CARS 63,922.3041c} Mark Saensen
C. CARS CHALL 3,000,000,0001 Michael
Summers
C. HAMMER 43,847 David Thompson
CYBERBALL 475,000 David Marsh
DENARIS 53,900 Peter Evans
DIABL0 1.490 Timolhy Johnson
DRAGON NINJA 246,400 R. MaOhews
DOUBLE DRAGON 136,840 G. Wilson
D. DRAGON I1 187,830(0) D. Carsburg
EDD THE DUCK 5,620 A. Gomly
ELIMINATOR 246,570 Grea Monro
EMERALD MINE Level 23 (d) T. Johnson
FLOOD 6,455 Embah Beaton
GEE BEE AIR RALLY 308,726 R. Irwin
GIANA SISTERS 63,720 D. Chapman
GODS 3,057,622 (0) R. Pill
GOLDEN AXE 70.3(c) Kevin Mils
HYBRIS 2.34S555 Graham Wilson
IK* 840,920 Powerhouse Nick
IMP. MISSION 66,380 D. Unwin
IMP. MISSION II 67,900(0) D. Dilkes
INDIANA JONES L.C. comp. P. Nico
IIINDiANA POLLS 500 38.17seC
235,78mph Kevin Newman
INERTIA DRIVE 33.190(c) Ben Toyne
KARATE KID II 54,000 M. Summers
KLAX 4,396,040 Happy Hacker
LEATHERNECK 86,500 ShaneCrosland
LIVE AND LET DIE 96,520 M. Beaton
MAJOR MOTION 50,658 Owen Webster
MENACE 896,481 Kamikaze Andy
MIDNIGHT RESISTANCE 302,550
Oops! Lost your nam el
MINDWALKEH 306,214 P Schumacher
MOUSETRAP 71577 DavoRich
NARC 180,800 Damien Carsburg
NINJA MISSION 66,528 Chris Toyne
NITRO 261 ,000 (c) Damien Carsburg
NUCLEAR WAR (c) Paul Ruoci
N. Z. STORY 546,695 Embah Beaton
ONSLAUGHT 16,179 Andrew Gamly
OPERATION THUNDERBOLT 53,000
Andrew Gormly
OPERATION WOLF 355,680 G. Wilson
OUTRUN 26,331,122(c)BenjaminMoen
OFF. WARRIOR 626,345 J. Booth
PACMANIA 3,250,140(c!AmosBuibidge
PINBAU. MAGIC 332,390 T. Ctilcott
PINBALL WIZARD 1,029,360 G. Stone
PIONEER PLAGUE 35,412 Ke« Sooby
PLUTOS 299,000 Davo
POPULOUS 347,990 Mchael Summers
PORTS OF CALL $3,654,944,000 Status
1033 Troy Clarke
POW 612,665 David Thompson
R. ISLANDS 9,999,999 (c) T. Johnson
RAMPAGE 212,912 Graham Wilscn
RICK DANGER II 68,450 S. Sculbursl
ROBOCOP 375,520 Mchael Summers
ROTOX 183.050(c) FayeDohaty
SIDEWINDER 904.350 S. Etsley-Eades
SILKWORM (Heli) 4.079500(c) Iceman
SILKWORM (Jeep) 622,500 D. Evatai
SKWEEK 3,375,400 Faye Dohaly
SPACE ACE 22.140 Neville Clarke
SPACE HARRIER 210,855,250 Maverick
SPEEDBALL 17,650 Amos Burbidge
STARWARS 5,722,822 C. Mngos wave
33
STRIDER 175,350 N el Young
SUPER CARS 17 races Maverick
SUPER HANG-ON 25,042,850 0.
Worthy
SUP. OFF-ROAD $350,000 A. Gormly
SUP. WOND.-BOY B7.190J. Slibbings
SWIV (HELI) 1,758,820(c) S. Soulhhursl
SWIV (JEEP) 1,788,100 Steven McKinlay
SWORD OF SODAN 403500 S. Begley
TEEN.M.N.T. 546.60O(c)James Leoken
TEST DRIVE 131.076(c) Jadan Noglel
TEST DRIVE 2 659,992 M. Summers
TETRIS 35,920 Michael Summers
TETRIX Leva 232 Stephen Lark
THE RUNNING MAN 123,500 D. Rued
THUNDERBLADE 2,034,040 De Moose
THUNDERCATS 522500 S. Soulhurst
TOWER OF BABEL 25,934 (c)S. Lark
TURBO OUTRUN 100,260,819
Matthew Mantle
TURRICAN 1,735,100(0) Adrian Jenkin
TURRICAN II 2,585,700 (c) M. Diggens
TV-S BASKETBALL 1 76-60 D. McKinney
TV-S FOOTBALL 189-0 D. McKinney
TWINWORLD 24,640 Carol Love
TYPHOON 54,255 OwenWebsta
VIRUS 19,801 Scott Southurst
WHIRLIGIG 28510 Nathan Allen
WINGS 432kils Robert Irwin
WINGS OF DEATH 56,670 Robert Irwin
WONDER BOY 291,350 Maverick
XENON II 1.107580(c) Mark Pala
ZOOM 67,051 Steve Jones
COMMODORE 64
ALLEY CAT 1,101 .150 Simon Mitchell
ALTEREO BEAST 251.250(c) A. Blanch
ARKANOID 822,200 The Joka
BATMAN 471230 John Nunes
BATMAN-THE MOVIE 1,087,080
Michael Bradley
BANGKOK KNIGHTS 39,600 Josh Smith
BOMB JACK 521 ,820 Adam Wade
B. BOBBLE 6,963,930 (c) D. Gavrilovlc
BUGGY BOY(c) 153,000 Adam Wade
CABAL 175,600The Joka
CHASE HO 1l,366,900(c)Happy Hacka
CHASE HQ II 29,1 00 (C) Adam Wade
CREATURES 10,123 Adam Malinowski
DAVID'S MID MAGIC 669,150 The Joka
DOUBLE DRAGON 35,820(0) A. Prasad
DOUBLE DRAGON II 255,190 Nickvan
Heeswyk
DRAGON BREED 496,870 Happy Hacka
FAST BREAK 136 to 9 Chris Byrne
GHOSTS AND GOBUNS 325,600 Adam
Wade
GHOULS AND GHOSTS 558,1 10 (c)
Adam Wade
GIANA SISTERS 287.100(c) A. Wade
GRYZOR 211,200 GiuSan Asletl
H. MARADONA Level M N. van
Heeswyk
HAWKEYE 207,650 Adam Wade
IKARI WARRIORS 308,300 J. Aldridge
INT. KARATE 139,300 Paul Mhlward
LAST NINJA II 21m30s(c) David Carta
MIDNIGHT RESISTANCE 28,540 (c)
Dennis Pike
NEMESIS 1 ,633,200 Adam Wade
OPERATION THUNDERBOLT 78,600
Adam Anna!
OPERATION WOLF 776,350 V/. Diaz
OUTRUN 16.952.780(c) Adam Wade
PARADROID 103.060 Chris Nilsson
PAPERBOY 103.100(c) Jchn Nunes
PIRATES 1 431100 D Steward
POWERDRIFT 872,940(0) Adam Annen
QUE-DEX639 Chris Byrne
R-TYPE 1590510Atul Prasad
RAINBOW ISLANDS 7,653541 Adam
Malinowski
RAMPAGE 180,000 Adam Wade
RICK DANGEROUS 66,280 Adam Annai
ROBOCOP 237,170(0) Adam Wade
ROLLING THUNDER 417,280 A. Wade
SALAMANDER 235,300 Paul Millward
SHINOBI 664.372(c) Winston Diaz
SILKWORM (Heli) 965500(c) A. Blanch
SILKWORM (Jeep) 244500(c) A. Blanch
SKATE OR DIE Freestyle 22,095 The
Joker
STREET FIGHTER(c) 168500 Adam
Wade
SUPER CYCLE 223,040 Andrew Gamly
TARGET RENEGADE 330,450 C.
Byrne (docked)
TEST DRIVE 36.144(c) John Nunes
TEST DRIVE II 249,543 (c) A Balroc
TETRIS 35,335 (459 lines) Adam Annen
THE TRAIN 9.500(c) Adam Annen
THUNOERBLADE 1,734,040 Troy
Morrison
THUNDERCATS 269500 Joseph Wright
T.M.N TURTLES 1 292 Adam Annen
TRAZ 54,560 Dave and Sue Upton
TURRICAN 1,239,040 Adam Malinowski
UNTOUCHABLES 70530 S. Watford
WIZBALL 999,999 (c) G. Beaven
WONDERBOY 560,320 Happy Hacka
Scores followed by (c) indicate that
the game has been completed.
ACAR 68
These days, the RPGs are
coming thick and fast. And
who better to check them out
than Andy Phang. Read on for
Andy's assessment of a game
with rotten graphics, but the
best gameplay in years.
It's been 1 9 years since your last great
adventure. Back then, destroying the
Crystal Planet that threatened to an-
nihilate every star system in its path
earned you fame and fortune. Well,
fortune can disappear pretty quickly, as
you've found out. Fame doesn't pay for
the repairs to your starship.
Time for a new challenge, and the
boffins at Interstel just happen to have
an assignment right up your turbo
thruster.
This time the threat comes from the
Spemin. It seems that the former "whip-
ping blobs" of the galaxy (fans of the
original Staiflight game will undoubt-
edly remember some good times with
these "spineless" creeps) have suddenly
obtained an unlimited source of fuel.
Indeed, since the ban on endurium as
starship fuel 19 years ago, various alien
races had to scour the galaxy before
discovering shyneum, the current stand-
ard which the Spemin have control over.
Unfortunately, the Spemin have also
acquired deadly new technology for their
vessels, including plasma bolts, a com-
bat phase jump device, and a shield
capability superior to any other in the
galaxy. Spemins have long memories.
They want their revenge on all Earth-
lings. And that includes you.
At first glance. Starflight 2 looks
exactly like the original, and I mean
EXACTLY. MicroMagic, the team
which converted Staiflight from PC to
Amiga two years ago, is also behind this
one and it shows. They've moved over
all the same old graphic routines to
Starflight 2. from the introduction screen
to the space travel animation, to the
planelside visuals. Sure, there are one or
two new pictures to look at by virtue of
the increased number of alien races that
inhabit the galaxy, and Spaceport is now
a cylinder instead of a circular station,
but other than that everything else is the
same. This is quite a disappointment, as
I'm sure Electronic Arts received lots of
mail expressing the dissatisfaction felt
by Amiga owners over the graphics of
the original Staiflight.
Sound effects are limited to combat
(explosions and laser fire), though I
always thought that "in space no one
could hear you scream."
While there isn't any in-game music,
the title screen tune is very nicely put
together.
So how can I recommend Staiflight 2
to the computer gamer, when there are
no flashy graphics or sound to "sell" it?
The answer is a single, simple word -
gameplay. The depth and sheer
payability of Staiflight made it a winner
-•li>
flbflGT-fG-Mfi
25 59 15
Dest i nat i on Start Pos
81 x 6T 35 x 73
1 08 1 25
Dist Fuel
46 22
ACAR 69
Games Update
Welcome to the first in an
ongoing series of Amiga
entertainment news. This
column is brought to you by the
knowledgeable guys at
Interlink Software (see their
ad elsewhere in this mag).
By far, the most eagerly
awaited title at present is
Microprose's Formula 1
Grand Prix (written by the
same guy who brought us
Stunt Car Racer). This game
is so accurate that all 16 race
circuits are authentically
reproduced. It is sure to be the
Indy beater! It should be out
now!
Now that Origin's Wing
Commander's Amiga release
has been delayed (again!),
attention towards Ocean's
Epic has intensified. If you are
after a 3D space combat
simulator written specifically for
the Amiga then this is the
game for you. Once again it
should be out by the time you
read this.
Fans of Railroad Tycoon can
expect big things when the
Amiga version of Civilisation
is released. We've looked very
closely at the PC version and it
seems to be a much improved
version of that old classic
Empire. This is typically
brilliant Microprose stuff. Due
in April, best reserve your copy
with Interlink.
Sierra continue to chum out
even better Amiga adventure
games now that they have
made use of the Amiga's 32
colour mode and have also
overhauled their interface.
Both Leisure Suit Larry V and
Police Quest III are two Amiga
games to have benefited by
Sierra's new style.
Any of the above games can
be ordered or discussed with
Interlink Software on (06)
293-2233. New releases are
generally reviewed in their
AmigaLWK Disk Magazine.
Cheers,
The Games Gurus
--SFHF-eeNST-RLieTH-GN
ISS
Total
Pods; 1
Eng i nes ; C I ass 1
Shields; Class 1
Armor ; C I ass 1
M i ss i I es ; None
Lasers; Class 1
Mass; 184 Tons
Accel ; Very Poor
Shuneum; 150*0 M 3
Your account ba I ance is; 1 540Q SP
with RPG fans around the globe, and
its sequel is no exception.
While your ultimate quest is to un-
cover the secret behind the sudden
Spemin aggression, Starflight 2 also
places heavy emphasis on trading goods
with other lifeforms. There are 29 new
races to interact with, ranging from the
aggressive G'nunk to the oddly named
Dweenle to the even more oddly named
Humna Humna. Carefully note down
what items each race would give their
fifth limb for. and make huge profits by
selling such goods at inflated prices. If
you find something that the aliens really
want, you might receive useful items
such as Planetary Transporters and Phase
Inductors in return.
Options in trading have been ex-
panded to include bartering, which
means you can spend a LOT of time
haggling over the price of items. Of
course, if you're too unco-operative,
your potential client may lose interest
altogether and eject you from the trad-
ing post!
You'll find different methods of trad-
ing with different cultures - some will
bargain a lot, others won't bargain at all.
Being diplomatic at all times will ensure
a good price for your cargo, though a
little cunning won't hurt either. All this
trading not only fosters better relations
between you and your neighbours, it
also fulfils a much more important func-
tion - making money. As an ancient
philosopher once said, "Greed is Good".
You'll soon find that upgrading your
ship takes a lot of SP (shyneum pennies,
in honour of the new fuel), as does
training your crew.
There are other ways to make SP,
such as putting forward recommenda-
tions of worlds suitable for colonization.
Or you could always salvage scraps
from the debris of destroyed enemy
vessels, if you like the odds stacked
against your ship.
The greatest strength of a game like
Starflight 2 lies in its ability to actually
put you there in the Captain's seat.
Exploring strange new worlds, encoun-
tering new life forms, boldly going where
no man has gone before ... true, it sounds
like a cliche, but somehow the sense of
pioneering into the furthest reaches of
space has been magnificently recreated
in this game. Technologically, Starflight
2 could have been much belter product.
Gameplay wise, it's one of the best I've
seen.
A satisfying challenge for all comers.
Ratings:
Graphics: 30%
Sound/Music: 55%
Gameplay: 94%
Overall: 90%
Distributed by Electronic Arts, (075)
911388. Amiga RRP $59.95.
ACAR 70
Hard Nova
Our resident RPG guru Andy Phang takes a hard look at Hard
Nova. What does he find?
Hard Nova is quite an innovation in
today's software market. First, the
game's feature character ("Nova") is
female. Not just any female, but a rough
'n' tough, no nonsense freelance merce-
nary for the Starkiller Group. Nova's
been through a tough time lately - her
last ship was destroyed by a meteor
collision and most of the crew were
killed. Now that she's finally got herself
together, she discovers that new crew
members are hard to get hold of.
Apparently someone has been spread-
ing nasty rumours about her piloting
abilities - the chances against a space
vessel being destroyed by a meteor col-
lision are apparently quite astronomi-
cal.
The second distinguishing factor
which sets Hard Nova apart from other
RPGs is its actual graphical interface,
which can best be described as a cross
between Star/light and Zaxxon. Remem-
ber the scaled 3D view used by the
classic arcade blaster eons ago? Well,
it's back in Hard Nova, and used to
display ground movement on the plan-
ets that inhabit the Four Systems.
Travelling in space brings up a small
window not unlike Star/light, where
your little ship is seen hurtling across the
galaxy from a slightly overhead view.
Unfortunately,movementongroundand
in space seems a little slow, and there is
little animation throughout the game.
Visiting the different cities that are
found on inhabited planets brings up yet
another graphical mode, this time an
Ultima-tike overhead depiction of your
character.
Cities are great for exploring, espe-
cially the local bar (old habits are hard to
break), weaponry stores, and battle are-
nas.
You start off on the planet Mastassini,
looking for someone (anyone!) to join
your ship. Pretty soon you're launching
into space, looking for some job (any
job!) that will restore your pride, your
confidence, your reputation, butmostof
all, your bank balance.
Hard Nova combines mouse and key-
board controls to provide a fairly smooth
method of playing the game. Certain
function keys will provide a faster re-
sponse than clicking the mouse, but on
other occasions (such as space flight) the
latter might have the edge. There are a
lot of options available, accessed in a
series of menus. Clicking on Nova's
icon will bring up a list of her statistics
(no, not THOSE "vital statistics"!), and
from there you can have a look at her
inventory, her particular skills, armour
and weapons levels, and so forth.
Options for your space ship are j us t as
comprehensive, with icons for commu-
nications, combat, crew assignments
(and there are a lot of different posts to
be filled on your ship), and more.
Talking to the other non-player char-
acters (NPCs) in the urban jungles often
reveal vital information regarding the
various assignments you undertake as a
mercenary. Whenever you speak to a
NPC, you'll be presented with a picture
of the person (or thing) and your re-
sponses can be chosen from a selection
to the NPCs comments or questions.
Hard Nova handles NPC interaction
extremely well, with each NPC seem-
ingly having his or her own personal
history. Talking to certain NPCs can
also be quite amusing at times. Try
having a chat with the Lamprey creature
that you' 11 encounter on Starkiller Base.
In terms of plot, the introduction
screens provide a mysterious indication
of future events in the game. At the start,
all you can do iscomplete your missions
given to you by Starkiller Base, and
maybe fit in a few smuggling operations
along the way. Remember that bank
balance?
Later, though, Nova will come across
what proves to be the major quest of the
game - to encounter and deal with a race
of alien origins that inhabit a star system
connected to yours by a StarGate.
A dying star threatens to wipe out
these aliens, and they've decided to
leave their home planet in search of
greener pastures. Guess where they're
headed?
I have mixed emotions about this
game - the interface is difficult to get to
grips with initially, but once you do it
becomes fairly easy to control. The vari-
ous "styles of play" are certainly inter-
esting and original, and having a female
lead character was fun (in a wholesome
sort of way - no nasty thoughts here,
please!).
Yet the game wasn' t to be as involv-
ing as something like Starflight2. Some-
how, the emotional experience that you
usually get from playing (and often,
completing) aRPG simply didnotrise to
alevel of personal satisfaction. Of course,
this opinion will not be the same for each
individual gamer. I guess it all comes
down to your own selective tastes.
Ratings:
Graphics: 80%
Sound/Music: 88%
Gameplay: 75%
Overall: 81%
Distributed by Electronic Arts ph
(075)911388
Amiga, RRP $29.95
ACAR 71
Necronom
Nimble fingered Dave Sanna checks out the latest in fast-
blasting space action in Necronom. What did he think? Read
on.
A hah! ... Gotcha ... BOOM, an-
other one gone, that'll teach ya
for taking me on. HA! Oh no ...
not the Guardian... AARRRGGGHHH!
KA BOOM!
Ah, alas the pains and strains of your
everyday shoot-em-up! But I'm not
playing your usual pinni-style thriller.
No. I'm playing Necronom.
"DEEP IN SPACE IN A GALAXY
FAR, FAR AWAY ..." reads the blurb
on the back of the Necronom package -
a fairly common sentence. And in many
ways Necronom is the same as all those
other blasting, explosive games. Except
for one thing ... your input on how your
ship will perform, and on the intellect of
your opponents.
At the beginning of the game a dash-
board appears displaying the following
weapons: Fire power,Ship speed. Bullet
power. Bullet speed, Bouncing bombs.
Homing missiles, Shield and Disrupter
bombs. Each weapon needs energy to
work. You only have six credits to
use to increase the energy of the ^_
selected weapons. The more lev-
els that you complete, the more
credits you gain.
There are codes for each level
which are needed, because apart
from the fact that the game has 32
long levels it's also incredibly
hard. That means it' s a game that' s
going to keep you going for quite
a while - when you get frustrated,
keep plugging on, because ending
a level is very rewarding.
The main game begins after
you have chosen the weapons. A
map of the galaxy shows worlds
you have conquered, and the one
you're about to go to.
After completing the first level
you can choose from three close destina-
tions which are on the map. This is very
helpful - if you can't complete a world
you have two more to choose from.
You'll also see a small picture of the
landscape and the end of level guardian.
During the game there are several
bonuses to collect which activate the
bouncing bombs and the homing mis-
siles or give you an extra life.
The arrangement of fire power in this
game is excellent. There are four direc-
tions in which your tire power can travel:
Single fire. Triple fire (front). Triple fire
(back), and sidefire (up and down). An
autofire or an extremely itchy trigger-
linger is necessary for most of the worlds!
There are many different aliens on
the first stage with different personali-
ties. Some chase you, some fire at you -
all of them keep you on your toes! The
points for each alien you annihilate are
shown after the respective explosion.
The graphics are very detailed, above
average for the Amiga, but the explo-
sions tend to get a bit plain and repetitive
after a while - still, they do the job.
The background is either a continu-
ing pattern of squares or lines, or just
plain black leading to the highly de-
tailed foreground, which features flam-
ing volcanoes and fire monsters.
The sprites are very well drawn and
the programming for their movements is
... annoying! Animations - all 3000
frames - is quite good.
The musical score is great. I like a
game with music setting the mood for
the game and Necronom sure has it! A
never ending array of quick lively music-
boosts the payability a lot. The accom-
panying sound effects are only medio-
cre, though, which is a bit of a let down
- as in the graphical department, the
explosions don't have enough "grunt"!
In conclusion, your first impressions
of this game may be confusing and
aggravating, due partly to the lack of a
good manual.
But this game has definite promise! I
really enjoy a great shoot-em-up, and if
you do too then Necronom is for you!
Graphics 83%
Payability 90%
Sound 80%
Overall 87%
Distributed by Pactronics (02) 748
4700. Amiga RRP $59.95.
I— L
ACAR 72
Ken Simpson wades through a weighty
instruction book and polishes up his
strategic skills as he takes on Mindcraft's
new release ...
Rules of
Engagement
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This is one of the hardest reviews I
have ever had to write. Not be-
cause the game is awful nor even
that I have difficulty trying to explain
what the game is all about. The diffi-
culty I have is turning the game off long
enough for me to write it. Not since Elite
have I been quite so totally captivated by
a game.
In fact. Rules of Engagement is some-
what like a mix of Elite and Star Trek.
Rather than being a space trader you
are an officer in die navy of the Feder-
ated Worlds that has just been declared
war upon by the United Democratic
Planets. Have you ever noticed that
when governments put the word "Demo-
cratic" in their name, they are almost
always not democratic? Well, same here.
The UDP are the bad guys and you are
the good guys.
Basically the theme is simple. You
have to capture or neutralise the UDP
Reel as they seek to take over your
territory. This may involve destroying
or capturing ships or outposts, patrolling
waypoints and generally making your-
self a nuisance to the olher guys.
There are twenty preset missions you
can play ranging from very easy through
to very hard. Of these you can play them
all at different skill levels from easy,
where the odds are stacked in your fa-
vour, through intermediate to advanced,
where they are not.
You command one of a number of
different vessels that are given lo you at
the start of each game. Some vessels are
not commandable by you until you reach
a certain rank. In most scenarios you
have a number of different ships under
your command, each with its own cap-
tain who has his or her own faults and
foibles. One guy just kept on running
away despite having one of the best
ships on the block!
You play the game from four main
screens - navigation, communication,
tactical and data retrieval. There is an
initial screen for disk operations like
choosing your game, choosing your fleet
commander, and creating new scenarios.
Yes, if you get bored with the games
provided you can make your own with
die game builder!
The tactical screen is the one where
you spend most of your time. This is the
attack and defence place, where you can
do some simple navigating as well. From
here you control your
shields, yourattitude (so that
shots will hit particular
shields if possible) and your
missiles and EBW. What's
an EBW? An enhanced
beam weapon. What's
wrong with the good old
fashioned Laser?
There are a number of
different missiles, each widi
their own capabilities and
different EBW modes as
well.
The data retrieval screen gives you
information about the fleet, individual
ships, damage control on your ship and
access to information about your
oppnonent and your own fleet captains.
You also get your mission briefing and
evaluation form here.
The game is supposedly part of an
"Interlocking Game System" where if
you have the other program in the suite
(for Rules of Engagement it is Breach IT)
then when the appropriate moment
comes. Rules will load Breach II so that
it just becomes part of the other game.
Pity I haven't got Breach 11 to try it out.
Sound good diough, and a very inter-
esting idea. If you think this sounds like
a mega game, it is.
The manual is well written, but very
weighty. Still worth agood look through.
My main criticism is simply that it
just doesn't feel like an Amiga game.
The graphics are good but ... not quite
there. A bit clunky in places.
The sounds are okay, and used in
tasteful moderation.
And joy of joys, it is not copy pro-
tected, and it is hard disk installable.
Compatible with a 68030 and
WorkBench 2 as well as multitasking.
Rules of Engagement also has a pause
control and can save mid-game! What
more can you want? It's a great game -
now for one more try before 1 turn off.
Graphics 70%
Sounds 85%
Payability 80%
Addictiveness 85%
Challenge 90%
Overall 82%
Distributed by Electronic Arts (075) 91 1
388. RRP $69.95.
ACAR 73
Feel like some mischief? Wanna go back to childhood?
Then here's your chance as Phil Campbell playtests
The Adventures of
Willy Beamish
In my case, it doesn't take much
effort to imagine the antics of anine year
old boy. Nathan, my number one son,
turns eight in a few weeks time - so all I
have to do is extrapolate a little. The
results don' t bear thinking about, which
mustmean I'm turning into an old fuddy
duddy. Which simply won't do.
The Adventures of Willy Beamish is
the perfectremedy. This beautifully ani-
mated adventure game puts you in the
shoes of trouble prone nine year old
Willy Beamish. You'll face the ordeal
of living with a pair of neurotic yuppie
parents. Of a big sister who's always
talking to boyfriends on the phone. And
a pesky little sister who always wants
you to push her on the swing. Hmmm.
Wonder how hard you'd have to push to
make her do a loop? (You'll find out!)
Naturally, there's more to a nine-
year-old's life than the family. Add a
giant pet frog named Horny, a vampirish
"baby-sitter from hell", and a deranged
mob of bad guys plotting to blow up the
city's sewer system and you've got the
makings of quite a story. The aim of the
game is simple.
First, make sure
Horny wins the
Tootsweet Frog
Jumping Contest.
Then use the
prize money to get
to the city for the
Nintari Computer
Games Champi-
onship - and win.
And, if you get
around to it, save
the city.
All the action in the game is mouse
controlled - as you move around the
screen the pointer changes to indicate
possible actions and movements. If you
can pick something up, the pointer high-
lights it. If you can move off in a certain
direction, the pointer becomes an "exit"
sign. And if you can talk to a character,
the pointer becomes a comic-book style
"speech bubble."
The game be-
gins at the end of
the school term.
Freedom! You've
just arrived home,
and you're stand-
ing outside the front
door. A click on the
mouse button takes
you into the foyer.
The decor is taste-
ful - polished
wooden floors
gleam in the sun-
light, and the furni-
ture is stylish. A
stairway leads up-
stairs, there's an
archway to the right, and the doorway to
the kitchen is straight ahead. Your "in-
telligent pointer" tells you that you can
move in any of the three directions. Feel
free to take a look around!
Before you go, you notice the red
light on the answering machine is flash-
ing. Belter check the calls. Beep. "Mr
Beamish, the payments on your Grange
Rover are overdue. Put a cheque in the
mail, or we'll tow it away." Beep. "Mr
Beamish, this is Principal Frick. We're
still having disciplinary problems with
your son Willy. Please contac..."
Mmmm. An-
other quick click
on the mouse
button and the
messages are
safely erased. A
close call!
Then it's up
the stairs as
quick as you can
foraquickgame
on the Nintari
before Mom or-
ders you to do
some chores. Life as a nine-year-old is
precariously balanced. Do you come
when she calls? Or have one more game?
A meter on the screen will keep you
appraised of the current slate of parental
anger. I'm running just below "melting
point"
Graphics in The Adventures of Willy
Beamish are spectacular. In a strange
caseoftechnology-gone-backwards, the
backgrounds were originally
handpainted and crayoned - they're soft
edged, bright and colourful, and bring
Willy'shome townof Humpfordtolife.
Traditional cell animation techniques
have been used too, and the results speak
for themselves. Some sequences are so
close to the quality of a TV cartoon that
you'll need your glasses on to pick the
difference.
Overall, this is a nice little game. And
I guess all the family would enjoy it.
Mind you, I'm not planning on showing
it to Nathan j ust yet - he doesn' t need any
extra help at getting up to mischief.
Distributed by Ozisoft (02)3136444.
Amiga RRP $69.95.
ACAR 74
Number One
Compilation
Wings, Lemmings, Pro Tennis
Tour, Shadow of the Beast 2
Christmas has come and gone, but if you look around the
bargain bins you'll still find some great bargains. And here's
one compilation worth watching for. Juris Graney checks out
a pack featuring four of the best.
As I looked around, I caught a
glimpse with the corner of my
eye - a red plane, right behind
me. This was to be my final flight against
the Jagdstaffel. Another came into sight.
And then another. Pulling back on the
stick, I climbed sharply, only to stall and
start plummeting towards the ground at
a deathly rate.
As I started losing consciousness my
body slumped foward onto the controls.
Then nothingness ... Sitting up, I find
tiny green creatures running around me.
Wait a minute ... I'm green too. My
companions are walking towards a cliff,
and I' ve got an incredible compulsion to
follow them. Plop. The leader of the
pack has fallen into a pit of boiling lava.
Plop. Plop. Two more. I keep walking
towards the cliff in a sort of a trance. I
was next My small pink feet walk off
the cliff and I start decending into the
lava. I close my eyes and dream of my
favourite sport. Tennis. "40 love".
A voice booms over a loud speaker.
I stare at my opponent at the other end
of the court. He lobs the ball into the air
and smashes it at me. The ball rockets
towards me atan alarming pace. Instinct
takes over. My tennis racket comes onto
the ball and smashes it back at him. He
swings his racket but misses the ball
completely. He throws his racket onto
the ground in anger, and it spring up and
hits mc squarely in the forehead.
My feet pound across the ground and
into the valley. I keep running until I
meet a Woodsman. Swingingmymighty
mace I clunk him one across the head.
He falls to the ground with a heavy thud.
I keep running, but to my surprise a
woodsman jumps from the tree and
throws a spear at me. It gouges into my
leg.
Only one hope remains - 1 press Ctrl-
Amiga- Amiga and the game resets. What
a relief. I live to fight another day.
Now back to the real world The
Number 1 Compilation cer-
tainly lives up to its name.
There's no doubt that it's the
best to date - Wings, Lemmings,
Pro Tennis Tour and Sliadow
OfTlie Beast 2 are all superb
titles. Put them together, and
you've got a genuine bargain,
and a top class collection.
Wings has great sound ef-
fects, great graphics and is ex-
tremely addictive. Lemmings
has been voted "Computer
game of the year." When you play it you
will understand. It's so damn addictive
I have to fall asleep at the keyboard to
stop myself from playing it. The graph-
ics are small but brilliant and it has
excellent sound effects and music.
Add Pro Tennis Tour, the best tennis-
sim to date, and you've got a strong
package. But there's more.
Shadow of the Beast 2 is the best of
the lot. It's got the best graphics I have
ever seen in a game on the Amiga The
gameplay is enthralling, and the music
and sound effects are better than bril-
liant.
If you have some money left over
from your Christmas shopping, or if
Santa gave you some cash that you
haven'tspentyet, thisistheobvious way
to spend it.
Ratings:
Graphics:
Sound:
84%
80%
Gameplay:
Value:
86%
90%
Overall:
89%
DistributedbyQuestor(02)6627944.
Amiga RRP$
ACAR 75
MICHAEL SPITERI'S
MyQEfowsi
a,
Welcome to the Realm - Australia's
only magazine column dedicated to in-
forming and helping those who tackle
adventure games on Commodore com-
puters. If you are stuck in an adventure,
check out our list of free hint sheets, or
one of the many Clever Contacts. If you
still haven't found the solution to your
problem, send your problem here and
you'll see itappearon the thesepagesfor
thousands of adventurers all over Aus-
tralia to think over.
The address for adventure problems,
chit-chat, rumours, hints and tips.etc. is:
Adventurer's Realm, 12 Bridle Place,
Pakenham, Vic 3810.
Kamikaze Andy resides in his dun-
geon to help those stuck in RPG games.
His address is:
Realm's Dungeon, P.O.Box 315,
Maddington, WA 6109.
If a reply is expected, you MUST
enclose a stamped addressed enve-
lope.
The Official Adventurer's Realm Hint Books
The first Official Adventurer's Realm
Hint Book is no longer available from
newsagents. We still have a few more
copies left if you'dlike one. Phone (02)
398 5111 to order your copy, at only
$9.00.
The second Official Adventurer's
Realm Hint Book is currently at the
printers, and is due for release shortly.
Titled 'Computer Adventure Games -
Hints & Tips', it will also be available
from newsagents all over the country.
Look out for the dragon on the front
cover!
Free
Hint
Sheets
The following hint sheets are free!
Just select up to four of your choice, and
send a stamped addressed envelope to:
Free Hint Sheets, 12 Bridle Place
Pakenham, Vic 3810.
Zak McKracken, Maniac Mansion,
Indy, Zork I, Zork 2, Zork 3, Bards Tale
I, Bards Tale II, Bards Tale III, Guild of
Tliieves, Jinxier, Pawn, Fish, Uninvited,
Deja Vu, Hampstead Hitchhikers Guide,
Faery Tale, Borrowed Time,
NeverEndingStory Ptl, Dracula Pt2,
Hobbit, and Clever Contacts Complete
Listing.
Bargain Basement
Peter Boothman of Brunswick Pub-
lications (P.O. Box 458, Bondi Junc-
tion, NSW 2022) has replied to the
many pleas of C64 adventurers unable
to find good adventure games.
Peter has aspecial diskpack contain-
ing over 20 top quality public domain
adventures (a mixture of text and
graphic) for only $15. Thai's $15 for
five disks ! That works out to be less than
75 cents a game! However, this offer is
only available by mail, and only to
those who mention Adventurer's Realm.
Send a cheque for $15 made out to
Brunswick Publications to the address
above, and you'll soon receive enough
games to last a decade!
Meanwhile, if you can afford to
splurge out a little more cash, the
Maxwell Computer Centre, 162-164
Nicholson St, Abbotsford in Victoria
has a huge range of adventure games for
the C64, Amiga, and Commodore PCs.
Write to them or drop in for a free
catalogue.
Finally, bargain hunters might like
to check out their nearest Pacific
Microlab for some discount software in
the $1 5 - $25 dollar range for the Amiga
and PC.
The Fountain Gate store (Vic) has
titles suchas^Tn's/a/, Balance of Power,
Leather Goddesses ofPfwbos, etc for
under $25.
Top 10
Adventure/Strategy
(combined Amiga/PC)
1. Leisure Suit Larry V
2. Kings Quest V
3. Willy Beamish
4. Police Quest HI
5. Heart of China
6. Eye of the Beholder
7. Monkey Island
8. Might and Magic m
9. Kristal
10: Centurion: Defender of Rome
Top 10 is kindly compiled by Pacific
Microlab - Fountain Gate (Vic), from
November /December 91 sales figures
ACAR 76
Realm's Chit - Chat
Aaron Davis of Werribee in Victoria
writes:
"I would like to compliment you on
the Clever Contacts section of the Realm
I have previously called upon the assist-
ance of one of these contacts and re-
ceived extremely helpful hints. I would
also like to thank you for all the help the
Realm has provided me with in previous
months. It has helped in an uncountable
number of games, and I find the Chit
Chat section very interesting. I have
found that the Adventurers Realm has
always been of a very high standard."
MS: Thanks for the compliments
Aaron, we are glad you like the Realm.
I'd like to pass the compliments to the
many Clever Contacts whose voluntary
work has been invaluable, and of an
exceptionally high standard.
Jim Fang of Brentford Square in Vic-
toria is stuck with a bung Personal
Nightmare Disk(l), and would be grate-
ful if anyone could give him a copy of
this disk. He has sent the original to the
Realm, so it is a genuine plea, not a
pirate's request. Jim is willing to return
the favour with some public domain
software, or a disk of hints and tips.
Jim'saddressisP.O.Box539, Brentford
Square, Victoria 3131.
Raymond Huntley of 1 36 Warrendine
Street, Orange, NSW2800hasanumber
of adventure and roleplaying games to
swap for the Amiga.
I must stress though, that I will only
display games to swap thatare older and
no longeravailable. Remember, we have
a software industry that needs support-
ing.
A big thank you goes to Allan Mills
of Holt in ACT, and Robert Cameron of
Kangaroo Flats for their donation of
valuable hint sheets to the Realm.
Stuart George of Springvale writes:
"Seeing that Mystery House (by
Roberta Williams of Sierra fame) was
released into the public domain recently,
I was wondering if you could ask the
readers of Adventurer's Realm if anyone
has a copy that runs on the PC they are
willing to copy or sell. I am also looking
for a copy Lurking Horror or Myth on
the PC, so if anyone has a copy, I'd be
willing to buy it"
MS: Yourquestionshavebeenasked!
Let's see if anyone answers.
V' op the
Troubled Adventurers
Peter Komyshaw cannot seem to pass
the snake or use the transportation tube
in Arazoks Tomb. The transportation
tube would be to start the power plant.
Peter is also stuck in Chrono Quest.
He has completed the chateau and the
prehistoric level, however he cannot
finish the Mexico section even though
he has found the temple. The Egypt
section has Peter bewildered to say the
op the w
Smart Adventurers
Dept.
least!
MS: Clever Contact Mark Harris -
January Issue, has offered a fairly de-
tailed solution to these problems, so it
might pay to drop him a line.
Letters are rare from the Northern
Territory. Michael Loersch of Darwin is
currently tackling Knight Ore, and his
current problem is an inability to get
followers. Can anyone cure this trouble-
some inability?
Ian Myers of Charnwood in ACT
would love some general hints on Leg-
end of the Sword.
Aaron Upcroft has collected a dozen
or so problems to ponder upon. First up,
in Fish, once through the trapdoor, how
do you return safely to the tower? What
is Bertie Bream's password? How do
you get into the computer program?
Then, in The Hobbit, Aaron writes:
"Most hints I have come across about
killing the dragon say to tell Bard to
SHOOT DRAGON. This may be so,
however once at the front of the Lonely
Mountain, I tell Bard to GO NORTH to
get to the dragon, and by the time I get
there, he is already dead! What do Ido!"
Aaron also asks if there is a way into
the "small hole that always disappears
as quickly as it appeared" at the back
entrance to the Lonely Mountain?
Finally, if Aaron has any hair left
after trying to solve the above problems,
then he has lost it trying to solve Not A
Penny More, Not A Penny Less. All he
wants to do is to purchase the disguises!
Does anyoneknow theexact commands?
Game: Deja Vu II
For: Tony Finn and Dale Priem (De-
cember)
From: Ian Myers, Charnwood, ACT
Help: Show the news clipping from
Ace's wallet to the correct Blackjack
dealer, play at that table, use 'Hold down
shift/select/drag' on any chips won, and
double your bets!
Avoid the laundry until you have
collected Bondwell's suitcase from Las
VegasRailwayStation. Theclaim check
is at the Chicago morgue.
Wear the cop's uniform from Sugar
Shack'sapartmentto the Morgue, check
corpses, IDs, ask the clerk for the effects
of each person named.
Game: Eye of the Beholder
For: Raymond Huntley (December)
From: Graeme Beaven, Wyong NSW.
Help: Top open the blocks north of
the level 2 entrance you need to take the
items from the shelves in three loca-
tions. Go north through five doors to one
ACAR77
shelf. Go east from ladder through door.
To close pit holes, pull levers and throw
a rock on the pressure plate. Go south
from ladder then east Watch your com-
pass at the intersection.
To get out, walk through illusionary
walls and watch your compass.
Game: Dungeon Master
For: David Heydon (November)
From: David McKinney, Leichhardt,
NSW.
Help: Go through the 'enter with
caution' door (which needs the ruby key
from level 1 1) and follow the corridor to
the west There is a button on the south
wall along here that should be pressed.
In the room at the end of the corridor is
a turquoise key under some ashes.
This will open one of the four doors
seen earlier (the other three can never be
opened).
Return the same way and a new cor-
ridor will have opened up. Follow this
until you come to a button on the left
wall. Press the button and backtrack to
find a winged key. This is all that is
needed to gain access to the fircstafFs
chamber. To get the firestaff, a master
key from level 12 is needed.
Game: Ultima V
For: Wayne Phillips (November)
From: David McKinney.
Help: To climb over the mountains
you need to use the grapple. Try asking
Lord Michael in Empath Abbey about
it As for the fighter in Trinsic, if he
doesn'tknow about 'word' or 'mantra',
forget about him.
Clever Contacts
Update - David McKinney of 126
Norton Street, Leichhardt, NSW 2040
can now help in the following
games: Capti ve (5 missions), Buck
Rogers: The Countdown to Doomsday,
Ultima V, Eye of tlte Beholder, Secret of
the Silver Blades, Phantasie 3, Death
Knights ofKrynn, Chaos Strikes Back,
Hobbit, Dracula, Bards Series, Pool of
Radiance, Ultima 3-4, Hitchhikers
Guide, Dungeon Master, Cluvnpionsof
Krynn, Kings Quest, Corporation, Curse
of t lie Azure Bonds.
Stuart George, of 66 Sharon Road,
Springvale, Vic 3171 can now help in
Corruption, among many others.
Suspicious Cargo
Seasoned adventurer Michael Spiteri checks out the first
major adventure release for '92, and decides that it's pretty
good stuff. Read on as he sniffs out Suspicious Cargo.
Howdy folks, Jonah's m' name and
smugglin's m' game. We have a little
problem here, that being that I've just
taken out a bleedin great mortgage to
renovate my ship the Lucky Lady, and
those bignoses from the finance com-
pany don't act very nice when it comes
to delayed repayments, and are cur-
rently in the process of reclaiming MY
ship.
Now it seems if I smuggle some cargo
for them to planet Earth, they'll recon-
sider the repo.
Well, as I was saying, I' m pretty good
at smuggling, so the sooner I get out of
this coffin and back to my ship, the
better!!
Tell ya what though, a nice warm
glass of metagalactic ale wouldn't go
astray!
So the scene is set for the first major
text/graphic adventure game of 1992.
The plot simply has you controlling our
hero Jonah Hayes on this exciting mis-
sion to deliver the suspicious cargo, and
hopefully help him retain ownership of
the Lucky Lady.
A Hollywood style introduction se-
quence sets the pace, with 'Hoyts' style
logos, digitised graphics, and nice n'
loud theme music thrown in for good
measure, and before you know it you
wake up in a coffin. Not your average
dead person's coffin, mind you, this is
the latest in modern accommodation -
the coffin hotel. It contains the basic
necessities such as a pillow, a mirror,
and luggage compartment. What more
do you need!
Anyhow, Jonah is woken up by a
someone (or something) knocking on
the coffin door, and lo and behold, we
have the messenger of good tidings with
a nice little letter from the finance com-
pany.
Surely the mission cannot be as sim-
ple as just delivering a crate containing
a genetic mutant warrior?
Well, the first problem is this courier
dude. You have to handle him correctly,
or he' 11 call in Mr Big to really clean you
up.
A visit to the local drink hole and you
come across a detective chatting up the
barmaid. You can't disturb these two
while they are deep in conversation.
At this stage the detective doesn't
seem too interested in your problem,
ACAR 78
CX33
and he eventually leaves. You leave too,
but not after spotting something that
could be of interest behind the bar.
Finding the Lucky Lady isn'tmuchof
a problem, however you could imagine
that getting genetic mutants off this
planet past customs is not going to be an
easy task, and if anyone out there in
adventureland can advise me on how to
blast off before the spaceport heavies
finish me off, then maybe I get a little bit
closer to completing the game.
Currently I have scored 60 out of
1000.
Original adventurers who liked the
Infocom and Activision adventure will
grow deeply attached to this game, it
features detailed text descriptions and
allows text commands to be entered via
thekeyboard. Textcommands? Remem-
ber those? However, since a majority of
today's adventurers don't know how to
use the keyboard, a whole range of icons
are available, making the game com-
pletely playable with a mouse.
Occasionally a Hide beeper will go
off in the comer and you have the option
of looking at the pretty graphics that
depict the location you are at. An-
other beeper will let you know about
one of many arcade sequences (yes,
they had to be included) that, accord-
ing to the manual, "should be treated
as a visual representation of a text
puzzle". You don' thave toplay these,
but they are there if you want to!
The playing screen is split up into
a number of sections, with the top
coupleof centimetres containing icons
to configure the text and graphics.
You can set the text to nice and beefy
verbose, or trim and terrific brief.
Then mere are four mini TV screens,
and any characters you come across will
be displayed here (in digitised form).
These can also be manipulated as de-
sired.
Then you have all the control icons,
and there are over 30 of these stacked
along the left side of the screen. To the
right of the screen thereis the descrip-
tive text, and if you want, you can make
the entire screen just contain the text to
give it that Ol' Infocom feel.
Finally, the bottom inch of the screen
contains the direction icons. Arrows
here flash to indicate the available exits,
and pointing at one results in your char-
acter moving in that direction.
When Jonah is in his Lucky Lady
spacecraft, a map can be called up, and
Jonah can move to any place on the map
just by pointing to it. Nice touch eh?
In fact, it is the considerable attention
to gameplay that makes this game so
good. The feel of a futuristic post-nu-
clear world is strong, and the graphics do
well to enhance the gloomy atmosphere.
The "Dirty Harry" style humour is
well placed and suits the setting. The
plot is interesting and amusing, and the
problems are plentiful, especially after
Jonah and the Lucky Lady finally take
off. He'll have to face a pirate attack,
deal with an escaped illegal pet alien,
escape Galactic police and answer dis-
tress signals!
There are many interesting charac-
ters for you to chat to, including the
ship's computer Babbage!
A detaded booklet explains all. you
need to know to play this game, as well
as some hints to get you started.
Overall, what we have here is an
adventure that was put together on a big
budget by a group of very professional
programmers, and this shows clearly
throughout the package!
Anyone who buys this game is eligi-
ble to enter the Jonah Lookalike contest,
with the prize being a crate full of good-
ies. The competition closes March 31st,
so overseas entrants still have a chance
to win.
Well guys, enough of this war-
bling, Jonah has a job to do, and time
is running out quicker than you can
say "Generic Mutant". Sooner or
later I'll get some help out of that
lazy cop, and we can get down to
business. You're all welcome to join
me ... I'll put some hairs on your
wimpy chests!
Now, about thatMetagalactic Ale,
I know a barmaid ...
Distributed by Mindscape (02)
899 2277. Amiga RRP $69.95.
ACAR 79
Kamikaze Andy
A computer role-playing game is
probably seen by many as being
the most difficult of all entertain-
ment software genres. Thick manuals,
multitudes of disks, and labels on boxes
thatscream "This game willrequire 100
hours to complete!" probably scare off
a few potential RPGers.
This is quite a shame, as the satisfac-
tion of playing and actually completing
a role playing game is probably second
only to activities of a physical nature
between two humans that will remain
nameless (this is a family magazine!).
Basic tips on RPGs
Anyway, this month I've decided to
outline a few basic tips on playing
RPGs. While aimed at novice role play-
ers, veteran gamers might be interested
in knowing how I personally tackle a
RPG (maybe you could send in a few of
your own techniques).
First step. Psych yourself to the task
ahead. Most RPGs will take up quite a
bit of your computing time, especially
once you're hooked! Don't expect to
finish a RPG in a few hours ... or even
a few days.
Clear your mind, take a deep breath,
and then tackle the game. Most impor-
tantly, make sure you're enjoying it
(give it a few hours ... if you're more
frustrated than excited after some heavy
sword'n'sorcery, then perhaps RPGs
are not for you!)
It's recommended that you thor-
oughly read the game manuals included
in your RPG package before trying the
game. Unlike manuals for flight sims or
strategy games, RPG manuals are rela-
tively short and often interesting. Usu-
ally manuals will provide some back-
ground
informa-
tion on
your ulti-
m a t e
quest, and
clues can
be subdy
hidden
behind
story
para-
graphs. Most of the possible functions
and options in your RPG will be ex-
plained in the manual, as well as a few
shortcuts (often "hotkey" commands,
where you can press a function key to
bring up inventory, for example, in-
stead of having to click all over the
screen with your mouse).
Finally, manuals often include VI-
TAL information on the game's magic
system, including spell lists and costs,
effectiveness of spells, and so forth.
Similarly, have a look at other as-
pects of the packaging. The box which
contained your RPG may have one or
two screenshots that unwittingly reveal
a few hints. A famous case of "helpful
packaging" is the order form fora Chaos
Strikes Back hintsheet included in the
box. The order form itself had (as an
example, of course) a very useful map
of one of the hardest levels in the game !
Characters
Some RPGs "force" you to use char-
acters whose statistics have often been
predetermined, butmost include a Char-
acter Creation option. When choosing a
party of characters, try to maintain a
balanced mix between fighters and
magic users. I consider the latter to be
of greater importance than the former,
since mages can be forced into melee
combat if needed, but fighters usually
can't cast spells if your mages have
been killed!
For an average party size of six, try
to have at least two magic users (one of
the mage type, with offensive and de-
fensive spells, and one of the cleric
type, with healing spells). The best
compromise is to create a mixed class
character, a fighter/mage for example.
Some games will allow this(notably
SSI' s AD&D RPGs) but some will not.
Always have a Paladin if the game
allows for such a class. Except for the
magic users, try to vary the other classes
a little. A pretty ideal party (assuming
that mixed class characters are NOT
allowed) would consist of: a Paladin, a
Fighter, a Thief, 2 Mages, and a Cleric.
Many RPGs revolve aroundcombat.
Once you've built up your party, the
fear of dying won' t be as prevalent as it
is when you've just started playing.
Some useful combat tactics include
using ranged or missile weapons (bows
and arrows being preferred).
Always cast a few spells! Not only
does this build up your spellcasting
experience, many offensive incanta-
tions often strike from a distance and
get rid of the enemy before they enter
melee range.
Mapping
Perhaps the most unpleasant task of
any RPG is mapping. Fortunately most
of the latest games have a wonderful
feature called automapping.
Simply click on the relevant button
to bring up a description of the places
you've visited. If you HAVE to map a
maze, graph paper from a newsagent
will come in handy. Ultima-type games
(overhead view) hardly require map-
ping, so it's those 3D Dungeon Master
RPGs that are troublesome.
If you don't want to map, try doing
a Zork and drop a few useless objects
around the place to mark important
locations. Also, you might want to to-
tally complete one maze level at a time,
so that you won't have to return to that
same maze later in the game. I detest
mapping. I just memorize each level
without committing them down to pa-
per. Of course, that's also why most of
my hintsheets don't come with maps.
Finally, as a last resort, the RPGer
ready to rip his or her hair out can seek
some solace from the many hint books
available for specific games. You can
also write in to the Dungeon with your
woes, and F 11 be here with my shoulder
ready for you to cry on.
Just remember that S AE!
ACAR 80
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RRP $69.95
Distributed by: 9
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